By Sammy Miles, Managing Editor-in-Chief of CORROSION journal

On Tuesday, Dr. Nick Birbilis discussed the role of grain size, grain orientation, and crystallinity on the corrosion resistance of alloys in his presentation, “Toward Sustainable Corrosion Resistant Alloys.”

Dr. Birbilis, the 2026 AMPP Willis Whitney Technical Achievement Award recipient, highlighted some of the work he has done in his career — with a focus on light metals.

With a career-long interest in the structure of metals and alloys, Dr. Birbilis has studied corrosion of various pure metals and alloys through a number of techniques, including focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD).  

One early area of focus was the effect of grain size. He would process alloys in different ways to get a variety of grain sizes, from which his research was able to show how grain boundary length correlates with corrosion.

From there, Dr. Birbilis investigated the grain orientation, the role of crystallinity, and the role of particle (or participates) sizes. He spoke about approaches to how we consider reactivity of metals and alloys, but postulated that while energetics will dictate processes, “chemistry always wins.”  

Throughout his career, Dr. Birbilis has worked with and created different types of metals and alloys. He reflected on creating alloys in the foundry at The Ohio State University during his time there, as well as three-dimensional (3D) printing alloys later in his career. He continues to be interested in developing other kinds of “stainless” metals, such as “stainless” aluminum and “stainless” magnesium.

Dr. Birbilis presented some real-world applications of alloys he has studied and designed. These included aerospace alloys used in aircraft, corrosion-resistant aluminum alloys used in ship hulls, and “stainless” magnesium alloys, such as magnesium-lithium alloys that are used in lightweight electronics, like laptops.

To learn more about this year’s Whitney Award winner, listen to the recent podcast episode with Lucrezia Scoppio (AMPP Awards Program Committee Chair), Dr. John Scully (Chair of the Whitney Award Task Force), and Dr. Birbilis.