Determination of real-time oxygen transfer rate based on an electrochemical method

The interfacial oxygen transfer rate is one of the main factors to control the composition of alloys. The commonly employed method of studying the interfacial oxygen transfer rate is the chemical composition analysis; however, it is difficult to be studied in situ. Here, a new method of measuring the oxygen transfer rate at the gas–slag and slag–metal interfaces was reported based on electrochemical analyses. The interfacial oxygen transfer rate in the smelting process of Inconel 718 superalloy was investigated at 1723, 1773, 1823, and 1873 K. The experimental results show that the electrochemical method can measure the real-time oxygen content; hence, this method is promising in controlling the oxygen content in alloys. As the temperature increased, both the equilibrium oxygen content and the rate of oxygen absorption increased significantly, and the increase was the most obvious when the temperature was 1873 K. The possible reason is that the increase in temperature weakens the mass transfer resistance of the electric double layer at the interface, thus accelerating the oxygen transfer rate.