Fall 2024 has been particularly eventful in terms of the number of ICMT graduate students completing their PhDs.

First up was Neda Norooziasl, advised by Prof. Marc Singer. Her dissertation research was on "Effect of Oil/Water Wetting on CO₂ Corrosion Behavior". Recognizing how flow regimes can influence surface wetting in oil/water systems, she investigated how representative surface active compounds could play governing roles in associated corrosion phenomena. Her research significantly enhanced our understanding of intermittent wetting effects on corrosion, offering invaluable insights for developing more effective mitigation strategies. Neda has joined BP as a Materials & Corrosion Engineer located in Houston, Texas; developing and implementing corrosion management strategies for upstream, downstream, and new energy facilities to ensure asset integrity and operational reliability.

Next was Kushal Singla. Building on our groundbreaking work on inhibition, his dissertation is on "Characterization of Corrosion Inhibitor Adsorption using Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation". Working in collaboration with Dr. Hubert Perrot of Sorbonne University in Paris and advised by Prof. Nesic, he applied quartz crystal microbalance methodologies to build on, and validate, foundational research employing atomic force microscopy to quantify molecular adsorption. His work serves as a link for integration of defined inhibitor adsorption phenomena into corrosion prediction models. Kushal is continuing as a post-doc within ICMT's CCT-JIP.

Finally, Sahithi Ayyagari defended on "Role of Organic Acids in the Initiation and Propagation of Localized Corrosion of Mild Steel in Aqueous CO₂ Environments"; also advised by Prof. Nesic. Resolving the roles of weak acids in aqueous corrosion environments is of key importance to the oil and gas industry given their ubiquitous nature, her focus being on their impact on forming/formed FeCO₃ layers relating to complexation effects. Sahithi has joined ChampionX as a Principal Chemist located in Sugar Land, Texas; focusing on electrochemical and corrosion performance testing to deliver tailored solutions that enhance asset reliability and ensure long-term corrosion protection.

Lukas Johansson successfully defended his thesis entitled "Development and Modeling of Flowtube Apparatus for Conducting Corrosion Experiments" on November 7, 2024. Lukas had completed his research work at the ICMT and began working as a Principal Radiation Protection Specialist at Westinghouse Electric Company in 2022. His continued progress to complete his thesis while working a full-time job is commendable. Congratulations Lukas!

Dr. Yoon-Seok Choi was invited as a guest lecturer to give a seminar in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Colorado School of Mines on October 24th, 2004. His lecture was on "Confronting Corrosion Challenges in the Oil & Gas Industry and Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) Processes". The details and abstract for the talk are available here

The Corrosion Center JIP Fall 2024 Advisory Board meeting was held October 9^th and 10^th. There were 9 company representatives from our 13 sponsoring companies in attendance for the 2 day meeting. Included in the 12 presentations from students and staff over the two-day mini conference was a guest presentation from Steve Smith, Adjunct Professor at Ohio University, on Oilfield Metallurgy - 101, which was well received by all who attended. The photo above was taken outside of the ICMT during the first day of presentations. Feedback from the representatives during the Members' Review meeting were very positive and we look forward to meeting online in January and in person again in May 2025. For sponsors of the CC JIP - recordings of all presentations are available on the secure server for you to view and share in your company.

On July 1st, a two-part series on Investigation of Iron Dissolution Mechanism in Acidic Solutions with and without Dissolved CO₂ was published in the July 2024 edition of the Corrosion Journal. These two open access articles are currently available for download and review. On July 10th, Winston Revie, an associate editor for CORROSION journal, led a roundtable discussion about the recently released two-part paper series which was based in three labs around the world. The seven authors are the following Negar Moradighadi (ICMT, Ohio Univ); Huiru Wang (ICMT, Ohio Univ); Luntao Wang (ICMT, Ohio Univ & Universit� PSL, CNRS); Antoine Seyeux (Universit� PSL, CNRS); Alain Pailleret (Sorbonne Universit�, CNRS); Philippe Marcus (Universit� PSL, CNRS); Srdjan Nesic (ICMT, Ohio Univ).
The background and the descriptions of the research provided during the roundtable discussion provide an in-depth understanding of the journal papers which is a benefit to all readers.
YouTube - Corrosion Journal July Roundtable

You can read both parts on corrosionjournal.org or by clicking the following:
Part 1 - DOI-10.5006/4511
Part 2 - DOI-10.5006/4512

Congratulations to Yi He upon her receiving the Gustavus Edward and Gladys V. Smith Memorial Engineering Award, recognizing her as the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering's outstanding PhD student. She was presented with her award plaque at the Russ College 2023-2024 Student Awards Ceremony, hosted by the Russ College chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. Yi's dissertation research topic was the "Effect of Intermittent Wetting on Corrosion Inhibition in Oil/Water Systems", Dr. Marc Singer was her academic advisor. She presented at least biannually to her project sponsor, TotalEnergies, as a member of a collaborative team. She has 6 peer reviewed journal papers in Corrosion, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Equipment Environmental Engineering, and Corrosion Science; other manuscripts are in various stages of the review process. She is a co-author on 6 conference proceedings and presented papers and posters at each of the AMPP conferences from 2021 to 2024, taking 3^rd place in the Mars Fontana Category in 2022.

At the CC JIP 30^th Anniversary Awards Dinner, we wanted to formally thank our dedicated sponsors for their support of our research over these 30 years (1993 to 2023). Over the last 30 years, over 40 companies have sponsored the CC JIP, and more than half of those companies have provided funding for 5 or more years. Fourteen awards were given at the event.

View the full article and photo's here.

Yi He and Ishan Patel are the latest ICMT PhD students to defend their dissertations.

Yi's research topic was, "Effect of Intermittent Wetting on Corrosion Inhibition in Oil/Water Systems". Understanding wetting phenomena is key to understanding corrosion itself, and how it can be mitigated. Stemming from her research, she has over 10 publications as conference proceedings papers and peer reviewed journal articles; including in CORROSION, Corrosion Science, and The Journal of the Electrochemical Society. Advised by Prof. Marc Singer, she performed her research within our corrosion inhibition focused project working with TotalEnergies. She is continuing research within ICMT.

Ishan Patel performed his research within ICMT's long-standing NAP-JIP, his dissertation work was on, "Modelling and Simulation of High Temperature Naphthenic Acid and Sulfidation Corrosion". He has manuscripts currently going through the peer review process, as well as several AMPP conference proceedings papers. He worked closely with NAP-JIP Project Leader Dr Gheorghe Bota, his advisor being Research Professor David Young. Ishan will be joining NETL as an ORISE post-doc.

The Corrosion Center JIP Spring 2024 Advisory Board meeting was held April 17^th and 18^th. There were 19 company representatives from 8 of our sponsoring companies and 2 visiting companies. Included in the 14 presentations from students and staff over the two-day mini conference was a guest presentation from Fred Ruiz, Coastal Chemical, on Surface H₂S Applications and Chemistry Discussion. The photo above was taken outside of the ICMT during the first day of presentations. Feedback from the representatives during the Members' Review meeting were very positive ("The team is awesome!") and we look forward to meeting online in June and in person again in October.

The Corrosion in CO₂ Transmission Pipelines (CCT) JIP 2024 Spring Advisory Board Meeting was held on April 15^th and 16^th. There were 27 company representatives (in person and online) from 15 of our sponsoring companies.

March 8, 2024
Hisashi Amaya, Kyohei Kanki, Atsushi Sohma (Nippon Steel), and Matteo Fiocchi (S&L Consulting) visited ICMT to discuss the ongoing research project about corrosion of CO₂ injection tubing materials.

Current ICMT students and alumni had noteworthy recognition at AMPP2024 in New Orleans.
Neda Norooziasl and Yi He, both in the final stages of completing their PhDs, each received the AMPP Graduate Student Book Award.
ICMT PhD students also took top places in different poster award categories. Kasra Shayar Bahadori took 1^st in the Fontana category, which focuses on corrosion science, for "Methodological Development for Corrosion Inhibitor Persistency Studies", with Adam Cutright placing 3^rd with "CFD Simulations of Strong Acid and CO₂ Corrosion in Various Flow Geometries". Sahithi Ayyagari secured 2^nd in the Pourbaix category, for corrosion engineering, with "Influence of Acetic Acid on the Protectiveness of Iron Carbonate Layers".
ICMT alum Francois Ayello, PhD 2010, was also recognized for his contributions to the field of corrosion and its prevention by being named an AMPP Fellow. Francois is a Principal Engineer with DNV. Thu Tran Addis, PhD 2014, received the AMPP2024 Early Career Excellence Award. Thu is a Corrosion Engineer with BP.
Former ICMT post-doctoral researcher and Top-of-the-Line Corrosion JIP project leader Zineb Belarbi, also received AMPP's Joyce Wright Industry Impact Award, which recognizes women for "creating a positive impact on the culture of the materials protection and performance industry, mentoring, and providing wisdom to others in the industry". She is a Corrosion & Materials Scientist at National Energy Technology Laboratory, Task Lead for Pipeline Material Technologies.

ICMT Center Director Srdjan Nesic will be presenting the next CorroZoom webinar on 20^th February. Speaking on "Corrosion of Carbon Steel in Aqueous CO₂ Environments - the Known Knowns and the Known Unknowns", he will present on the state-of-the-art on this topic, which is of key importance to the energy industries; from oil and gas production to carbon capture. Registration is required at Zoom

The abstract for his presentation reads as follows:

"The known knowns: gaseous CO₂ is stable, mostly inert and non-corrosive. However, upon dissolution in water and a subsequent hydration, a more reactive chemical species - carbonic acid, is formed, which then partially dissociates to form an acidic solution, corrosive for carbon steel. Due to partial dissociation, these kinds of aqueous solutions are called weak acids, even if there is nothing weak about them when it comes to corrosion. Actually, aqueous CO₂ solutions are more corrosive than strong acid solutions at the same pH. A lot is known about corrosion of carbon steel in aqueous CO₂ solutions: the water speciation, the electrochemistry of cathodic and anodic reactions, the formation of protective layers, the most influential factors, etc. Over the past 50 years a vast body of knowledge was generated in this field, mostly driven by the challenges coming from the oil and gas industry, where the hydrocarbons that emerge from the ground are always accompanied with some CO₂ and water, making internal corrosion of carbon steel facilities a large problem. Wells, pipelines, processing and distribution facilities are all affected.

The known unknowns: removal of anthropogenic CO₂ from the atmosphere and its capture at the source is one of the largest scientific and engineering challenges facing humanity in the 21^st century. If this CO₂ is to be safely transported and stored underground, it must be compressed to pressures where it is in liquid or supercritical form. Even very small amounts of water, SO_x and NO_x (in the ppm range) can lead to catastrophically high internal corrosion rates of transportation and injection facilities made from carbon steel. Little is known about this type of corrosion and the understanding we have about aqueous CO₂ corrosion of carbon steel does not carry over entirely."

Now in its 4^th season, CorroZoom is a free webinar series administered by Prof. Gerald Frankel of The Ohio State University's Fontana Corrosion Center. Further information on CorroZoom, including webinar slides and recordings from past events, can be accessed at OSU.


UPDATE - A recording of Prof. Nesic's presentation can be accessed here: FCC OSU Webinar.

To see the talk follow this link: Youtube

"Effect of Oil/Water Intermittent Wetting on CO₂ Corrosion in the Presence of Acridine and Myristic Acid" featured as editor's choice open access article for Corrosion. View the Article here: (CORROSION (2024) 80 (1): 102-112)

Drew Trommer and Shuai Ren have officially graduated, making them our most recent alums.

Drew completed his MS degree on "The Effect of Organic Acids on Hydrogen Sulfide Corrosion of Mild Steel", he worked within our Corrosion Center Joint Industry Project; his advisor was Research Professor David Young. Manuscript preparation is ongoing, with publication scheduled for Fall 2024 in line with CC-JIP policy. He has started a position as a Metallurgist with Element Materials Technology.

Shuai's PhD was on "Effect of Corrosion Residues and Products of Mild Steel on Corrosion Inhibition Mechanisms in CO₂ and H₂S Environments", conducted within our corrosion inhibition project with TotalEnergies; his research focused on Fe₃C, FeCO₃, and FeS interacting with our in-house synthesized pyrimidinium and phosphate ester model compounds as well as commercial corrosion inhibitors. To date, he has 10 publications, as either peer reviewed journal papers or conference proceedings, from his research within ICMT. His advisor was Professor Marc Singer. He has commenced employment as a Materials Scientist with Halliburton.

Mid-November marks Ohio University's International Education Week, and its Student Global Research Symposium. In 2022, ICMT PhD student Yi He took first place in its associated 3-Minute Thesis competition. This year, ICMT's Shrirang Deshmukh (SD) repeated the win taking the $500 prize, presenting on "The Effect of Oxygen on Corrosion in the Oil and Gas Industry". He narrowly beat out fellow finalist and ICMT PhD student Zhuldyz Zhigulina, who presented on "Insight into High Temperature CO₂/H₂S Corrosion of Mild Steel". This is a terrific achievement for both, and recognition of ICMT research in the broader OHIO community.

The 2023 Fall meeting of the CC JIP was held on October 24-26 at ICMT in Athens, OH. In attendance were 14 representatives from 9 of our current sponsoring companies while more representatives from our other sponsoring companies joined us in real time online. Over the 2 � day event, our students and staff provided 16 presentations for review and discussion. An update to MULTICORP V6.0 was released prior to this meeting and was reviewed on Thursday after the member's meeting. As usual, many great in-depth discussions occurred during the meeting with positive feedback for the current research directions. The photo below shows attendees from this event:

Ohio University President Lori Stewart Gonzalez, Provost Elizabeth Sayrs, and Russ College of Engineering & Technology Dean Patrick Fox made a combined visit to our laboratory. They learned about the three-decade history behind ICMT, our ongoing activities, and future plans. They then toured the laboratory floor, were shown key items of equipment employed in corrosion testing. Our PhD students Shrirang Deshmukh, Adam Cutright, Ishan Patel, Neda Norooziasl, Kamila Turganova, Zhuldyz Zhigulina, Yi He, and Martin Colahan showcased their research in a poster format, demonstrating the diversity of our research activities. University photographer Eli Burris cataloged the visit, and we thank him for the pictures below.

PhD student Payman Sharifi Abdar has successfully defended his dissertation research, "Mechanism and Modeling of Galvanic Corrosion between Mild Steel and Iron Sulfides in Acidic Solutions". Research within ICMT previously demonstrated that formation of different types of iron sulfides as corrosion products were a main culprit in localized attack, due to their wide-ranging physicochemical properties. Galvanic coupling between such iron sulfide layers and mild steel was suspected to be associated with the observed localized attack. The two types of iron sulfides investigated by Payman, pyrite and pyrrhotite, were shown to produce different galvanic corrosion due to their distinct electrochemical behaviors. To further elucidate the mechanism of the impact of iron sulfide type, the cathodic behavior of pyrite and pyrrhotite was systematically studied using a rotating disk electrode system. The results revealed that pyrrhotite has significantly higher cathodic current than pyrite. This difference originates from different cathodic reactions occurring at the surface of these iron sulfides. Manuscripts are in preparation relating to his findings. He has previously published in Electrochimica Acta and Analytical Methods. He has been a regular attendee at NACE and AMPP conferences, receiving 2^nd place in the Mars Fontana Category for his research poster at CORROSION 2021. Payman's PhD advisor was University Distinguished Professor, and ICMT Director, Srdjan Nesic. He recently started a post-doctoral researcher position in the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, with an electrocatalysis research focus.

ICMT PhD student Mohiedin Bagheri has successfully defended his dissertation research, "Mechanism of Anodic Dissolution of Iron and Steel in CO₂ Environments". His research focus was the mechanistic investigation of the multistep reaction that occurs during CO₂ corrosion. After critical review of the fundamental theories underpinning the oxidative dissolution reaction, he developed a simpler narrative that was successfully applied in corrosion modelling. Furthermore, has research yielded important insights into how specific environmental factors (e.g., pH, dissolved CO₂, temperature, steel type, etc.) can mechanistically impact kinetics of elementary steps, and ultimately the overall reaction of iron dissolution. His advisor was Professor Srdjan Nesic, his committee members were Professor Howard Dewald, Associate Professor Katherine Cimatu, Associate Professor Marc Singer and Research Associate Professor Yoon-Seok Choi. Mohiedin holds a MS degree in Chemical Engineering, also from OHIO, as well as BSc and MSc degrees in Materials Science & Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. He has published in the peer reviewed journals Advanced Materials, Materials & Design, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Materials Science & Engineering, Australian Journal of Chemistry, Electrochimica Acta, and Analytical Methods. He will be joining OLI as an Electrolyte/Corrosion Simulation Specialist.

The Russ Outstanding Research Paper Award recognizes excellence in research and scholarship exhibited by the faculty of Russ College and is awarded by recognition from a committee consisting of previous award recipients. (For more information click here.)
The team chosen for the award at the Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology focused their efforts on modeling experimental data obtained from a series of experiments on corrosion inhibition of mild steel in CO₂ saturated aqueous solutions. Regression analysis was performed using different ML algorithms (Artificial Neural Network, Random Forest, Support Vector Machines, and K Nearest Neighbors) to model experimental data of time-varying corrosion rates of mild steel specimens when corrosion inhibitors were added to the system in different concentrations and dose schedules and with and without pre-corrosion. One of the main conclusions was that the sensitivity of corrosion rates to changes in the environmental variables could be well-predicted by the trained RF model, which can eliminate the need to perform extensive experiments for different solution conditions in the lab. The paper can be found here.

Every Spring semester, Ohio University stages its Student Research and Creative Activity Expo. As usual, ICMT had multiple graduate students showcasing their research on the floor of our campus’s Convocation Center.

Presenting his poster on Inhibitor Adsorption Characterized using Quartz Crystal Microbalance, Kushal Singla took 1^st place in the Special Session Awards conferred by the University International Council. Yi He also took 1^st place for Effect of Intermittent Wetting on Corrosion Inhibition in Oil/Water Systems with the Best Content Award by the Graduate Student Senate.

Adam Cutright took 2^nd place in ChemBioEng2 with Impact on Corrosion and Corrosion Product Layers by Trace Concentrations of H₂S, Martin Colahan took 2^nd place in ChemBioEng1 on Development of a Downhole Corrosion Modeling Software, and Shrirang Deshmukh also took 2^nd with Anomalies Associated with the Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

The Expo is an excellent event where undergraduate and graduate students can also network, see each other’s research, and exchange ideas. A highlight in OHIO’s calendar!

Hearty congratulations to Huiru Wang upon her selection for the Gustavus Edward and Gladys V. Smith Memorial Engineering Award, recognizing her as the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering's outstanding PhD student. Along with a monetary component, she will be presented with a plaque for the award at the Russ College 2022-2023 Student Awards Ceremony and luncheon on April 22 from 11:00am to 3:00pm at the Ridges Auditorium, hosted by the Russ College chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society.

As is our norm, ICMT sent a healthy contingent to the AMPP Annual Conference in Denver. In total, 18 presentations were made and 17 posters displayed. Symposia participated in covered Corrosion Control with Inhibition, Progress in Laboratory Testing of Corrosion Inhibitors, Sweet and Sour Corrosion, VCI Applications, Corrosion in Supercritical Systems, Machine Learning, Mechanisms of Localized Corrosion, Refining Industry Corrosion, RIP, and Electrochemical Techniques. ICMT PhD students were also recognized by AMPP. Sahithi Ayyagari and Kushal Singla each received the Graduate Student Book Award, with Sahithi also receiving the Oliver Moghissi Memorial Scholarship. Kushal along with Neda Norooziasl were also selected for the AMPP Member Leadership Development Program. Recent ICMT research scholar Bernardo Santos, who we count as one of our own, was awarded the AMPP Diversity and Inclusion Grant. Internal planning is already underway for our participation in the 2024 AMPP Annual Conference in New Orleans.

During their research at Universit� PSL and Sorbonne Universit�, recent ICMT PhD Huiru Wang and current post-doc Luntao Wang collaborated on a surface analysis investigation that is now published in Corrosion Science, "Adsorption mechanism of quaternary ammonium corrosion inhibitor on carbon steel surface using ToF-SIMS and XPS". In their groundbreaking work, they combined Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to characterize adsorption phenomena associated with the corrosion inhibitor molecule tetradecylbenzyldimethylammonium on a mild steel surface. They demonstrated that the adsorbed inhibitor surface coverage strongly depends on immersion time and inhibitor concentration, with a maximum as well as uniform coverage is found for sufficiently long exposure times at a critical inhibitor concentration of ca. 25 ppmw. The uniform adsorbed inhibitor layer formed on the surface was determined to mitigate the formation of iron chloride/hydroxide intermediates, thus enhancing the corrosion protection of carbon steel in aggressive environments. The manuscript can be accessed here: (ScienceDirect.com).