Natural Science Forum / Chemistry / Electrochemistry / April 2007

I have a friend who lives in a sea-side environment - sea salt mist
will ofter blow up from the ocean toward his house.  Amazingly (to
me), he showed be several personal computers that have an amazing
amount of surface corrosion on their cases after just a couple of
years in this environment.

I've been reading about cathodic protection (using a sacrificial
anode), and I'm wondering if this technique is applicable to this
situation.  If so, are there any solutions that are scalable to a
"home" application?  I'm wonding if he should try to offset the ground
potential in his home electrical system (make it negative 1 degree to
true ground potential). Would that have the same effect as a
sacrificial anode system?  Is there still a need to connect this to a
true metalic anode.

Are there any commercial systems that he can purchase for this case?

Thanks!