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Abstract
Seawater is a complex corrosive system, and biofouling is one of the factors that influences corrosion processes. The behaviour of corrosion associated with the development of macrofouling was investigated during the first 6 months of the successional process. Three treatments were compared: the ‘Control’ treatment (absence of macrofouling); ‘Community’ treatment, and ‘Barnacle’ treatment, where other macroorganisms were excluded. In the Community treatment, the dominant organisms were filamentous macroalgae (23.73%), barnacles (17.51%), hydroids (16.96%) and encrusting bryozoans (9.58%). In the Barnacle treatment, the cover varied between 39.38% and 62.50%. The corrosion potential ranged from −665.75 to −517.50 mV(Ag/AgC l(KCl)) and could not be associated with fouling development. The highest corrosion rate in the control suggests that macrofouling provides a protection against mass loss. The highest percentage of localised attacks was found in the Community treatment. This may indicate that not only barnacles, but also other organisms induce localised corrosion.
Acknowledgements
To CNPq/PRONEX- FAPERJ, and to o CAPES and FENORTE for the MSc fellowship. We also thank to IEAPM for financial support for this study. We are grateful to the LACOR/INT team for the suggestions, field and technical assistance, especially to José Antonio Tavares, Ana Lucia Chaves, Nelita Ferreira, Florentina de Melo and Catarina Piquet. We are also thankful to Maria Soledad Lopez for the inestimable field support and to Gabriella Jackson for the grammar review of the manuscript.
