Stainless steels are extensively employed in industrial equipment and process media transport because of their favorable combination of mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. Nevertheless, exposure to strongly acidic environments can still lead to passive-film destabilization and accelerated dissolution. This review first provides a concise overview of passive-film formation, breakdown and repassivation, as well as microstructural features associated with corrosion susceptibility. It then synthesizes the mechanisms and governing factors of stainless-steel corrosion in sulfuric, hydrochloric, and hydrofluoric acid systems. In sulfuric acid, corrosion behavior is largely controlled by the competition between active dissolution and passivation. In hydrochloric acid, chloride ingress and passive-film breakdown dominate, resulting in pronounced sensitivity to acid concentration and temperature. In hydrofluoric acid, fluoride complexation and selective dissolution impose more severe constraints on film stability. In addition, this review summarizes how alloying with Mo, Cu, and Nb and processing routes including cold working, heat treatment, and welding regulate corrosion resistance. Finally, the need to integrate in situ and multiscale characterization with modeling is emphasized to establish quantitative composition–microstructure–film–corrosion metric relationships, thereby enabling material selection and lifetime prediction across service conditions.
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Yang et al. (2026) studied this question.
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