Galvanic Series
Metals can be arranged in a galvanic series representing the potential they develop in a given electrolyte against a standard reference electrode. The relative position of two metals on such a series gives a good indication of which metal is more likely to corrode more quickly. However, other factors such as water aeration and flow rate can influence the process markedly.
Galvanic corrosion is of major interest to the marine industry. Galvanic series tables for seawater are commonplace due to the extensive use of metal in shipbuilding. It is possible that corrosion of silver brazing in a salt water pipe caused a failure that led to the USS Thresher sinking with all men lost.
The common technique of cleaning silver by immersion of the silver and a piece of aluminium in an electrolytic bath (usually sodium bicarbonate) is an example of galvanic corrosion. (Care should be exercised for reasons such as this will strip silver oxide from the silver which may be there for decoration. Use on plated silver is inadvisable as this may introduce unwanted galvanic corrosion with the base metal.)
Read more about this topic: Galvanic Corrosion
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