Abstract
Field corrosion tests on titanium, zirconium, stainless steels, copper, nickel, aluminum and their alloys were conducted in the chemical equipments, in which the hot solutions of acetic acid were handled. In general, zirconium gave the best results and titanium also exhibited excellent corrosion resistance with a few exceptions. The resistance of stainless steels was generally good. However, in some cases, the local corrosion such as pitting or contact corrosion was observed to occur, especially for the steels which contained no molybdenum. In acetic anhydride containing acetic acid solutions of high concentration, the general corrosion and pitting were found to occur for titanium, zirconium and stainless steels when a small amount of copper ion is present in the solutions. The resistance of copper changed considerably according to the corrosive conditions and, in many cases, aluminum showed poor resistance.
