12th International Conference on Zinc & Zinc Alloy Coated Steel Sheet - GALVATECH 2021

In the recent years the Kelvin probe technique found a steadily and quickly increasing usage in corrosion research. The main application initially was for through-paint monitoring of corrosion driven delamination. Soon after that, with the development and availability of Scanning Kelvin Probe Microscopy (SKPFM), an Atomic Force Microscopy based Kelvin probe technique, followed the application of the technique for the screening of possible galvanic elements on alloy surfaces and more recently Kelvin probe techniques are applied for detection of hydrogen. In this paper an overview will be given about the potential of the Kelvin probe techniques for investigating corrosion performance and the hydrogen uptake and release characteristics of zinc and zinc alloy coatings and steel. It will be shown that Kelvin probe techniques, if applied in combination with an experimental test protocol that is tailored for the question to be addressed, can provide information that would be difficult to obtain with other techniques.