A coupled electrochemical and hydrodynamical two-phase model for the electrolytic pickling of steel

In industrial electrolytic pickling, a steel strip with oxidized surfaces is passed through an aqueous electrolyte between a configuration of electrodes, across which a potential difference is applied. The strip is thereby indirectly polarized, and electrochemical reactions at the strip surface result in the dissolution of the oxide layer and the evolution of hydrogen and oxygen bubbles. In this paper, we extend an earlier mathematical model for the electrochemical aspects of the process, which took account only of the liquid phase, to include the effect of the gas phase. The model is two-dimensional, steady-state and isothermal, and comprises five ionic species, the mixture velocity, pressure, and the gas fraction; numerical solutions of this model are then obtained. The results of the single and two-phase models are compared, and their implications for the actual pickling process are discussed.