Developed Steel Ceramic Composites for direct contact with liquid aluminum alloy and their in-depth electrochemical characterization at high temperatures have been presented. Both Steel Ceramic Composites, with 60 vol% of 316L stainless steel and 40 vol% of TiO2 or 40 vol% of MgO ceramic powder, were manufactured by means of powder metallurgy.
 
For the purpose of investigations, a novel three-electrode cell with liquid aluminum alloy as the reference electrode and barium carbonate BaCO3 as solid-state electrolyte was prepared. The influence of ceramic addition on the high temperature electrochemical characteristics of composites was investigated using differential potential measurement, electrochemical polarization and impedance spectroscopy. The potential difference between steel based composite electrodes and liquid aluminum alloy was measured throughout whole experiment (85h) including heating and cooling period. The experiments were performed at 850 °C. The determination of the high-temperature open circuit potential (ECorr) in reference to aluminum alloy were carried out via potentiodynamic polarization. The changes in the impedance characteristic were evaluated by the correlation of impedance responses. The work presents in depth analysis of surface of both working electrodes using Laser Scanning Microscope, SEM/EDS and XRD
 
The work presents the measurement of differential electrode potential, and thus also arising corrosion driving forces between steel-based composites and liquid aluminum alloy under extremely demanding conditions. This method after minor modification can be applied for analysis of any dissimilar solid-liquid or liquid-liquid material pair. The addition of 40 vol% of ceramic powder meaningfully decreased the ECorr of the composite-molten aluminum alloy pair indicating improved corrosion resistance of these composites against contact with molten aluminum alloy.