On the Methodology of Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy to Evaluate Hydrogen Embrittlement

Abstract

Thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) is a very important tool in hydrogen embrittlement (HE) related research and has been applied on many different materials over the last decades in order to improve knowledge on the HE phenomenon. TDS provides the opportunity to distinguish between different types of hydrogen traps based on the analysis of a spectrum with different peak temperatures each corresponding to hydrogen desorption from a specific trap. These peak temperatures, and consequently the different traps in a material, arise from the various microstructural characteristics of the material. However, TDS results are also influenced by many other parameters, such as the sample surface preparation, the electrolytes used for hydrogen charging, sample geometry, charging time, current density, charging temperature. Even though the use of thermal desorption to evaluate hydrogen-metal interactions has increased over the past years, a careful evaluation of the effect of these other parameters was not yet performed. In this work, the impact of some of the above mentioned parameters was studied. It was demonstrated that the sample geometry, the surface roughness, and the initial total pressure of the TDS chamber influenced significantly the obtained TDS spectrum.

TDS Evaluation of the Hydrogen Trapping Capacity of NbC Precipitates

“…The CO80-H 2 samples were already hydrogen charged during the heat treatment. This charging procedure already demonstrated its effectiveness for TiC precipitates as was shown by Pérez Escobar et al [9].…”

Determination of the equivalent hydrogen fugacity during electrochemical charging of 3.5NiCrMoV steel

“…Thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) is a powerful technique to study hydrogentrap interactions. TDS typically measures the amount of hydrogen desorbed from a specimen subjected to controlled heating [62][63][64][65]. TDS can (i) measure low hydrogen concentrations at ~1 wt.…”

“…ppm, and (ii) characterise the density and binding energy of hydrogen traps. TDS has been useful in HE studies, is complementary to mechanical tests [62], and has been widely used to investigate hydrogen-trap interactions in steels [66][67][68][69][70][71][72].…”

In situ small-scale hydrogen embrittlement testing made easy: An electrolyte for preserving surface integrity at nano-scale during hydrogen charging

“…Hydrogen recombination (H 2 ) increases as the sample surface roughness increases and this lowers the amount of atomic H which can enter the metal [47,48]. On the other hand, the actual current density increases as roughness decreases and this means that the sample can be charged more quickly [49]. Using an aqueous based solution, a palladium coating is used in some studies to prevent corrosion on the anodic side of the sample during the permeation tests [50].…”