Technical Cooling System Anode

No one told me we'd have to have a Masters Degree in chemical engineering, just to put coolant in our hot rods! What's this world coming to? (don't answer that)

 

I always put the reason that I have gone through many of those cheap chrome-plated die cast thermostat housings (the only ones readily available here) to their cheap plating and construction.
I reckon that the housing was actually working as a sacrificial anode and sacrificing itself to the gods of corrosion.
So it looks like if there is a piece of aluminium or magnesium mounted somewhere in the cooling circuit, and electrically connected to the block or radiator, this would dissolve before anything else made of aluminium in the circuit?

 

I was a Licensed Stationary Engineer by trade for 35 years . Keeping up on water continuity (PPM solids ) and PH is a must to control heat transfer and corrosion . Dissimilar metals br*** , iron , aluminum really up the process of cancer in your cooling system . Rupture a tube on a fire tube running 110% of capacity and after that you will get a new respect for controlling corrosion .