A novel experimental setup in which a glass microcapillary can be precisely positioned close to a metallic electrode has been developed to locally inject aggressive solutions at will. It has been used for studying the pitting corrosion of a 316L stainless steel in 0.5 M H2SO4 medium. The amount of chloride ions released by the capillary could be controlled and the analysis of the corrosion products by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy showed there was no selective dissolution of the 316L stainless steel. This device was shown to be an efficient tool for understanding localized corrosion. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.