ARI's Corrosion Research Capabilities

Dr. Maryam Eslami, Staff Research Scientist and leader of ARI’s Corrosion Laboratory, is an expert in corrosion science, with experience solving corrosion problems in the automotive, oil and gas, and defense industries. Dr. Eslami has been steadily building the corrosion capabilities and expertise at ARI to make ARI’s lab the preeminent one for corrosion research at Illinois.

Since joining ARI in early 2023, Dr. Eslami has worked on a variety of corrosion-related projects, such as aqueous corrosion of different alloys, including high-strength aluminum alloys and additively manufactured stainless steel, Zr-based and Si-based

conversion coatings manufactured using atmospheric plasma and immersion methods, and steel corrosion during the refinement of bio-feedstocks. She has fundamental knowledge of electrochemistry and the metallurgical aspects of corrosion. Dr. Eslami has designed experiments in both small-scale for fundamental studies, as well as large-scale (more industrially relevant) setups.

ARI’s corrosion lab has received funding from the Engineer Research and Development Center-Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL), Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), and bp (International Center for Advanced Materials). We also have active collaborations with the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the Department of Nuclear, Plasma & Radiological Engineering. For more information about our recent publications, please visit https://experts.illinois.edu/en/persons/maryam-eslami.

Dr. Eslami’s research interests include novel synthesized inhibitors, smart organic coatings, volatile corrosion inhibitors for gas phase corrosion, high temperature and pressure corrosion, including molten salt corrosion and supercritical CO₂ corrosion. Considering the electrochemical measurement capabilities within the lab, we are also actively seeking projects and collaborations in the field of hydrogen and energy.

ARI’s corrosion lab includes a GAMRY Reference 600+ Potentiostat with several electrode types, including a modulator speed rotator (MSR) with Rotating Disk Electrode (RDE), and Rotating Cylinder Electrode (RCE). The suite also includes a variety of electrochemical glass cells, including a standard glass cell, a paint testing cell, a custom glass cell for top-of-the-Line Corrosion (TLC) testing, as well as a salt spray chamber for atmospheric corrosion testing. These capabilities allow for electrochemical measurements, corrosion, inhibitor, and coating testing in aqueous, controlled humidity, and gaseous environments (such as CO₂ and N₂) at room temperature and up to 80 °C.