Conversion coatings have been effectively employed for many decades to protect a variety of metals from corrosion. One example is the use of chromated films to provide resistance to chemical attack for aluminum and its alloys. Even though these coatings are known to be one of the best means of minimizing corrosion, their use will be discontinued because of toxicity concerns. As a result, there has been considerable activity to develop coatings which are technically equivalent but do not pose an environmental risk. A brief overview of the electrochemical implications of the various proposed substitutes will be presented. In addition, some electrochemical characterization procedures will be presented to identify differences in behavior for the different systems being evaluated.
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