European Corrosion Medal 2022 awarded to Arjan Mol

Arjan Mol, Professor of Corrosion Technology and Electrochemistry at Delft University of Technology’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Scientific Director of the 4TU.Centre High-Tech Materials, has been awarded the prestigious European Corrosion Medal 2022 for his work on corrosion.

As former President of the European Federation of Corrosion (EFC), Mol is praised not only for his exceptional expertise in metal surface characterisation and modification, local electrochemical surface activity analysis and in situ interfacial bonding studies, but also for his personal enthusiasm for coaching younger generations of corrosionists, his long-lasting and ongoing service to the EFC in various leading positions, as well as leading his cutting-edge scientific research: “Arjan Mol exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding, dedicated scientist and leader who possesses personal integrity and a thoughtful communicative style.”

Impact of corrosion

“There’s almost no metal application in our daily life that does not suffer from corrosion,” says Mol. Ranging from offshore structures to microelectronics, corrosion is a multi-scale phenomenon affecting for example the aerospace and building industries, nuclear applications and many areas of infrastructure. “Economic impact studies have shown that around 3.5% of our GNP is associated with fighting corrosion, so taken together with other aspects like reduced efficiency and functionality and possible safety issues, corrosion has quite an impact on our society in general. Furthermore, a considerable portion of this impact could be reduced if we were to implement all the knowledge available to us in practice. This means that we as a global corrosion community should continue to work hard in our corrosion science, engineering, management, awareness and education activities to the benefit of our society.”

Research highlight

Mol’s research on corrosion addresses three key areas: metal surface treatment and interfacial bonding of coatings and adhesives; active protective coatings, including self-healing or ‘smart’ coatings; and understanding local corrosion which is of key importance to developing and designing new protection methods: “Recently we had an exciting breakthrough there when we were able to show local corrosion initiation at the nano- and micro-scale live! When we saw it for the first time using in situ transmission electron microscopy, we were just blown away. It’s these research highlights that makes the team’s hard work so joyful and worth it all in the end.”

Arjan Mol will receive the European Corrosion Medal 2022 at the European Corrosion Congress, EUROCORR 2022, where he will also give a plenary lecture: “This European Corrosion Medal is a token of appreciation for all the students, scientists and engineers, both in academia and in industry, that I was fortunate enough to work with throughout my career. So I have a feeling of humility, honour and sincere gratitude to all the people that I have worked with – and hope to work with again in the future.”

EUROCORR 2022 will take place in Berlin from 28th August to the 1st September.