- Rising prices of nickel and molybdenum in the recent past years have led to unprecedented interest in substituting leaner-content alloys for standard 300-series austenitic stainless steels in many applications. Due to the price volatility of various alloying elements, many new materials have entered the market, yet no direct comparison of corrosion resistance of these new materials exists. In this project, comparative investigations were carried out and in each case one or several representatives of a material group were taken into account. The material groups covered were: lean duplex stainless steels, manganese alloyed austenitic and duplex stainless steels and ferritic stainless steels. In addition to electrochemical investigations, all materials were exposed to various atmospheric conditions in different surface states.