In order to study the effect of molybdenum ion implantation on the aqueous corrosion behavior of zircaloy-4

specimens were implanted by molybdenum ions with a fluence range of 1×1016—1×1017 cm-2. The valence of the surface layer was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the three-sweep potentiodynamic polarization measurement was employed to evaluate the aqueous corrosion resistance of zirconium in 1 mol·L–1 H2SO4 solution. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the surface morphology of the three-sweep potentiodynamic polarized samples. It was found that a significant improvement was achieved in the aqueous corrosion behavior of zircaloy-4 implanted with molybdenum ions when the fluence was smaller than 5× 1016 cm-2. When the fluence was higher than 1×1017 cm-2

the corrosion resistance of zircaloy-4 implanted with molybdenum ions decreased as compared with that of the as-received zircaloy-4. Finally

the mechanism of the corrosion resistance improvement of the molybdenum-implanted zirconium was discussed.