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Why did Sir Humphry Davy’s method for preventing corrosion on ships fail in practice?
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Sir Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, detail of an oil painting after Sir Thomas Lawrence; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Sir Humphry Davy’s method for preventing the corrosion of copper ship sheathing involved using iron and zinc plates to provide electrochemical protection. While the scientific principles behind this method were sound, it failed in practice because the protection caused significant fouling of the ship's hull.1
The accumulation of marine growths, such as barnacles, proved to be a major issue that the electrochemical method could not prevent, leading to the method's ultimate failure and causing Davy great frustration.1