Nanometer-Scale Corrosion of Copper in De-Aerated Deionized Water

Copper is commonly regarded to be immune to corrosion in deaerated deionized electrolytes. The present work shows that, in the absence of hydrogen, copper will corrode on the order of 1 nm/day in deionized water with an O2 concentration on the order of, or less than, 1 ppb. While a corrosion rate of this magnitude can normally be neglected, it may be catastrophic for nanoscale copper structures utilized in emerging applications to enhance energy transport at the solid-electrolyte interface, such as in cooling advance electronics. This conclusion is supported by a set of experimental and analytical studies that encompass impedance spectroscopy, slow-scan linear sweep voltammetry, thermodynamic calculations for the environment under study, and kinetic simulations. The studies provide a comprehensive insight on details of the corrosion mechanism for copper in deaerated water.