The corrosion resistance of high entropy alloys was reviewed in the present work. The main focus was to explore the correlation between alloy composition, passive film stability and corrosion properties and use this information to develop a materials selection procedure based on the Ashby approach. Corrosion current densities and pitting potentials were the main design parameters used to rank different alloys, based on a careful examination of data published in the literature, considering uniform and localized corrosion, respectively. The outputs of the selection process clearly indicated a strong dependence of the corrosion resistance on passive film stability, although microstructural homogeneity and uniform distribution of alloying elements should not be disregarded. Proper combinations of elements such as Co, Al, Ti, Mo and Cr, especially, are effective at enhancing the corrosion resistance of high entropy alloys.

In the present work, the microstructure, electrochemical behavior and localized corrosion of the AA2198-T851 Al-Cu-Li alloy were studied. The microstructure was correlated with corrosion results obtained by immersion, gel visualization and scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) tests. Immersion and gel visualization tests showed high kinetics of corrosion attack during the first hours of immersion. SECM analyzes by means of surface generation/tip collection (SG/TC) mode detected hydrogen evolution generated during spontaneous corrosion from severe localized corrosion (SLC) sites on the metal surface. SECM results revealed sites of intense hydrogen evolution after 2 h of immersion and increased amounts of corrosion products after 4 h of immersion. Hydrogen evolution sites detected by SECM were associated with severe localized corrosion (SLC).