CORROSION NEWS - OCTOBER 2001
New Static Dissipative Laminates Work at Low Humidities
Motiva - Subpoenaed Officials Fail to Appear
10,000psi Hydrogen Storage Cylinder Undergoes Tests
EKOR Sealer Superior Macro-Encapsulant for "Hot Cells"
QUANTUM and Thiokol Successfully Complete First 5,000 psi Hydrogen Cycling Test
Can a Math Tool Predict Critical Corrosion ?
New "Slagging" Control Technology Demonstrated
Impeller Options to Combat Corrosion
Australians Discover $300Billion Opportunity in Titanium
Future of Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline Considered - Global Warming an Issue
Enviro-Weld Protects Against "Spatter"
Safer Blacking Good for Tight Tolerances
New Transmitter Seals for High Temperature
Thermiculite - Alternative to Asbestos
NEW STATIC DISSIPATIVE LAMINATES WORK AT LOW HUMIDITIES top
Nevamar(r) Static Dissipative Laminates(tm) provide durable work surfaces that are ideally suited for electronically sensitive applications, carried out in a wide range of relative humidity conditions. These applications include component fabrication, assembly, testing, maintenance and field service, as well as cleanroom environments. Nevamar is now introducing black into its Static Dissipative Laminates product line-up. This low-glare pattern option is ideally suited for high color-contrast workstation environments - such as fiber optics assembly - where it contributes to enhanced worker productivity. In addition to black, Static Dissipative Laminates are also available in a variety of other choices, including beige, almond, white, gray, graystone and blue. All Static Dissipative Laminates from Nevamar provide a controlled path to ground for the dissipation of static electricity to protect sensitive parts. A uniform resistance to ground is maintained from any point on the surface. Typical values range from 106 to 109 ohms, measured at 100 volts. Moreover, these laminates are designed to perform equally well in a wider range of relative humidity conditions - from 10% RH to 60% RH. Effectiveness in low relative humidities also minimizes potentially costly corrosion-related problems. All incorporate Nevamar's exclusive ARmored Protection(tm) Surface (ARP), which reduces shedding to one-tenth that of conventional laminates. Made of an extremely hard protective layer including a microthin application of aluminum oxide (mohs hardness of 9), ARP Surface(r) provides long-term resistance to surface abrasion and extends laminate life by maintaining its surface texture, delivering significantly better wear value than the industry standard for laminates (NEMA LD-3). In addition to being extremely abrasion-resistant, they withstand the debilitating effects of many common chemicals, and are extremely resistant to heat, hot solder, and solder flux. All Static Dissipative Laminate sheets from Nevamar are postformable for rounded applications. They are available in a variety of sizes, designed for permanent lamination to work station furniture surfaces. Or, choose heavy-duty Nevamar Static Dissipative Mats for use in existing workstations without the need to replace furniture or tops.
MOTIVA - SUBPOENAED OFFICIALS FAIL TO APPEAR top
Court orders will be sought to force six Motiva officials to appear before investigators looking into a fatal July acid spill and fire, a federal official said Friday (October 12). The six did not appear as scheduled Thursday and Friday before investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Last month, the board subpoenaed the company officials after they turned down requests for interviews for more than two months. The board was created by Congress in 1990 to help find ways to prevent major chemical accidents. The company is being investigated by a host of state and federal agencies because of the July 17 fire, which left a Fairless Hills, Pa., man missing and presumed dead, eight people injured, and resulted in the spill of about 1 million gallons of sulfuric acid. Some of the acid reached the Delaware River, killing thousands of fish. In a letter sent last month to Robert Ebert, Motiva's president and chief executive officer, U.S. Rep. Michael Castle, R-Delaware, urged the company to cooperate with investigators. After the fire, Motiva officials admitted that a sulfuric acid storage tank that collapsed and caught fire had a history of leaks and corrosion and was overdue for inspection. State officials have threatened to take steps to shut down the refinery if the company did not improve safety and maintenance.
10,000PSI HYDROGEN STORAGE CYLINDER UNDERGOES TESTS top
QUANTUM Technologies WorldWide, Inc., (Nasdaq: IMCO) announced today (October 11) that it has initiated regulatory approval for its 10,000 psi hydrogen storage cylinder. Engaging in the regulatory approval process, QUANTUM became the first to achieve a hydrostatic burst test in excess of 24,000 psi on a 10,000 psi (700 Bar) ultra-lightweight, all-composite, hydrogen storage tank -- higher than the European Integrated Hydrogen Project (EIHP) regulatory safety requirement of 23,500 (a 2.35 factor of safety). Hydrostatic burst testing records the maximum pressure the storage cylinder can sustain. The procedure entails filling the cylinder with water until the point of rupture. EIHP is at the forefront of developing global regulatory standards for hydrogen storage testing and certification. As part of the EIHP testing, in addition to hydrostatic bursting, the QUANTUM tanks will be verified for safety under other extreme conditions such as penetration by armor piercing bullets, diesel fires and severe corrosion. At 10,000 psi, significantly more hydrogen fuel can be stored in a given space than at 5,000 psi -- dramatically increasing the range of fuel cell mobile applications.
According to Syed Hussain, President and CEO of QUANTUM, "A critical component of bringing fuel cell vehicles to market is extending vehicle range. QUANTUM's achievement will play a major role in the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles by enabling fuel cell vehicles to travel further between refills."
EKOR SEALER SUPERIOR MACRO-ENCAPSULANT FOR "HOT CELLS" top
EUROTECH, Ltd., (AMEX: EUO), announced today that it completed a successful paid demonstration of its EKOR Sealer product for Battelle Memorial Institute at Battelle's West Jefferson Facility in Ohio. In this application, EKOR coated concrete shield blocks and demonstrated EKOR Sealer to be superior to conventional materials as a macro-encapsulant of hot cell walls and other radioactive contaminated components in West Jefferson's decommissioning program. Battelle will decommission five hot cells at the West Jefferson Facility and one hot cell at West Valley, New York. EKOR Sealer was tested for coating of the inner hot cell walls, shield doors and various other structures and equipment prior to diamond wire cutting them into manageable sizes for disposal. Hot cells were used for over thirty years of testing and evaluation of intact nuclear fuel elements from nuclear power plants. These structures have become highly contaminated and still contain an estimated 6,000 curies of activity in the form of metallurgical samples, contaminated equipment, sediment and fuel pieces, and distributed contamination on interior cell walls. The cells at West Jefferson contain about 13,000 cubic feet of transuranic material and a greater volume of low-level wastes. EKOR Sealer has demonstrated that the loose contamination in the hot cells can be fixed in place and safely contained while the cells are diamond cut for volume reduction and disposal. EKOR's strong adhesion and resistance to chemical and radioactive corrosion, make EKOR Sealer ideal for the hot cell projects.
QUANTUM AND THIOKOL SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE FIRST 5,000 PSI HYDROGEN CYCLING TEST top
QUANTUM Technologies WorldWide, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of IMPCO Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMCO) and ATK Thiokol Propulsion Company (NYSE: ATK), today (October 4) announced the successful completion of the first fast-fill cycling test of QUANTUM's 5,000 psi TriShield(TM) hydrogen storage tank. The test was completed at the QUANTUM /ATK Thiokol hydrogen storage testing facility located at ATK Thiokol's plant in Promontory, UT. The successful completion of this test demonstrated the continued commitment of the QUANTUM / ATK Thiokol alliance to develop state-of-the-art technology for hydrogen storage and enable the mass commercialization of fuel cell powered vehicles. QUANTUM's all-composite tank was successfully cycle-tested per NGV2-2000 requirements (modified for the 5,000 psi hydrogen storage pressure) and the European Integrated Hydrogen Project (EIHP) hydrogen storage standard. The testing was witnessed and validated by the independent Technical Surveillance Association (Technishcer Uberwachungs Verein E.V, also known as TUV). This is the first time an all-composite tank has been cycle tested to the modified NGV2-2000 standard at 5,000 psi. After the testing, QUANTUM's 11" x 46" hydrogen storage tank was sectioned and examined by TUV, and no liner degradation was noted. These results validate the ability of QUANTUM's polymer-lined, all-composite tanks to be routinely fast-filled with no deterioration, a critical safety feature for the market acceptance of on-board hydrogen storage for fuel cell vehicles. "The superior design, and manufacture of QUANTUM's Type IV TriShield(TM) hydrogen storage tank has been confirmed by meeting the test requirements of the NGV2-2000 and EIHP. Temperature and metallurgical performance data from these fully instrumented tests indicate that the tank and its components are the safest that are available for use in all hydrogen storage applications," said Syed Hussain, President and CEO of QUANTUM. "The fact that our tank performed flawlessly and withstood the repeated fast-filling of hydrogen at 5,000psi, and that our proprietary polymer liner showed no stress corrosion cracking or hydrogen embrittlement, sets us apart as a technology leader and a market leader."
CAN A MATH TOOL PREDICT CRITICAL CORROSION ? top
How long will a steel pillar support a bridge before rust eats deep enough to let it snap? How long will a container of corrosive acid hold before it springs a leak? A group of scientists at the University of Rochester has found a mathematical basis for predicting when a single point on a surface will erode to a critical depth. The findings are being published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Predicting when the lowest point in a surface will erode to a critical depth or when the highest point will build up to a critical height is challenging because there is no way to gain statistics on these extreme points. It would be like asking what the average height of the tallest person in a room is - there is only one tallest person, and so your sample is always limited to one. To produce information on these extreme points, Yonathan Shapir, professor of physics and chemical engineering at the University, and his team have jointly combined scaling math, also known as fractal math, with a recent branch of mathematics called "extreme-value statistics" according to the report. Evolving in just the last few decades, extreme-value statistics provides a way to determine the probability of extreme events, such as to forecast severe weather conditions or predict floods. "This is the first time we've had a way to predict how these extreme points grow based on nothing more than the roughness of the surface they're on," says Shapir. An extreme point could be the deepest point of rust in a steel girder or the highest point of metal accumulation inside a battery that leads to a short. Understanding them can lead to better material designs and more reliable devices, as well as cutting the time needed to test such designs. The process is like trying to find how tall the tallest person in the world is by measuring the height of the tallest person in a roomful of people. Obviously, the tallest person in the world probably isn't in the room, but extreme-value statistics offers a way to estimate how tall that tallest person is likely to be. The key to applying this approach to surfaces is the idea of scaling, or fractals, across both space and time. A pattern that can be scaled is one that has the same shape no matter how far you may "zoom in" on it. The basic pattern repeats itself on any scale at which you view the pattern. Fractals are visual patterns that display infinite scaling. Likewise, when a surface grows or is eroded, its overall pattern repeats itself with time. So a magnified piece of the surface will look like the whole surface after a long period of erosion or accumulation. The three physicists and one mathematician visualized how the roughness of a surface changed as it wore away-by an acid, for instance-or accumulated, such as inside a battery. They concluded that the extreme point of a section changed in a non-linear relation to the roughness. It would be as if the tallest person grew faster than everyone else in the room. Shapir and his team could then scale the section to the whole of the surface being affected by the corrosion or accumulation. In essence, they could extrapolate the height of the tallest person in the world by scaling up the relationship between average and tallest to account for the world's population. The next step in the research was to model the growth or erosion process backward in time to determine what a small section of the surface originally looked like, by studying the way the whole surface wound up. In collaboration with Michael Cranston, mathematics professor at the University, they were able to generalize the way the extreme points wound up by solving a mathematical model that should work similarly for any other fractal surface.
NEW "SLAGGING" CONTROL TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATED top
Fuel-Tech N.V., (NASDAQ: FTEK) today announced the successful demonstration of Fuel Tech's proprietary Targeted In-Furnace Injection (TIFI) technology on a 460MW boiler at PacifiCorp's Hunter Station in Utah. The Hunter unit is the first large western coal-fired utility boiler to use Fuel Tech's state-of-the-art TIFI technology for the control of slagging and fouling. Additionally, the Company announced that PacifiCorp plans to expand the use of Fuel Tech's TIFI technology on a 440MW coal-fired unit at the same facility. Fuel Tech's TIFI program utilizes advanced Computational Fluid Dynamic modeling techniques to ensure that active chemicals reach problem areas, thereby significantly reducing or eliminating slagging and corrosion concerns. Historically, these concerns have created multiple problems for utilities that include loss of efficiency, extremely high soot blowing requirements, tube erosion, boiler damage due to falling slag, difficult cleanings, as well as furnace fouling that can result in costly shutdowns. By utilizing Fuel Tech's TIFI technology, utility companies can maintain cleaner furnace conditions even as higher percentages of cheaper, lower grade coal are utilized at their power plants. Via Fuel Tech's TIFI technology, utility companies can also witness a substantial return on their investment over a very short period of time.
IMPELLER OPTIONS TO COMBAT CORROSION top
Non-corrosive Multi-Wing fan impeller range available from Fral Products is designed to offer total protection against moisture corrosion. The units are aimed particularly at applications such as coolers, condensers and air-conditioning units. There are four impeller types, Z-5, H-6, H-8 and M-4 blades, all made using standard interchangeable components that can be tailored to specific uses and each made from tough glass-reinforced polypropylene, while the hub and taperlock bushing are of glass-reinforced polyamide. The only metal parts are the stainless steel fixings. Type Z has five aerofoil blades of variable pitch and 1030mm max. diam; the H blades have six (597mm max. dia.) or eight (634mm max. dia.) fixed-pitch blades of twisted outline; Type M has four fixed-pitch 'paddle-type' blades of 508mm max. dia.
AUSTRALIANS DISCOVER $300BILLION OPPORTUNITY IN TITANIUM top
Australia has a golden opportunity to take a world lead in light metals, with the establishment of a multi-billion dollar industry in industrial-grade titanium. The discovery of a vast mineral sands resource across the lower Murray-Darling Basin in NSW, Victoria and South Australia, has opened the way for a new metal industry to complement the boom metals aluminium and magnesium. CSIRO Minerals is exploring five alternate technologies for the processing and extraction of titanium metal which they are quite confident will reduce the cost of production by about a half. The difference to Australia's bottom line could be staggering. The raw value of the resource is around $13 billion. If this were to be processed into titanium metal and other high-end products, the value would be closer to $300 billion. The Murray Basin mineral sands are an artefact of Australia's geological ups-and-downs. They are ancient, fossilised beachlines which lie in what, six million years ago, was a great inland sea called the Moravian Gulf. Wave action over the millennia sorted and deposited ilmenite, rutile, zircon, monazite and xenotime into some of the richest deposits on earth - in total, an estimated 45 million tonnes. The processing and extraction technologies include molten salts, fluidised beds, plasmas, and vapour-phase reduction. Only commercial trials can decide which of the technologies will ultimately prove the most efficient and environmentally sound. The real opportunity, according to CSIRO, is to make titanium a staple construction metal for the transport, building, water, chemical and marine industries. The metal industry is put off by the expensive price tag but CSIRO believes that, on a volume rather than a weight-for-weight basis, and taking into account its superior corrosion resistance, titanium is competitive with steel.
FUTURE OF TRANS-ALASKA OIL PIPELINE CONSIDERED - GLOBAL WARMING AN ISSUE top
The trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline has been a looming image in the state's pristine wilderness for more than two decades, viewed as an engineering marvel by some and an eyesore by others. The future of the pipeline will be getting an even closer look over the next year as governments consider renewal of the 30-year lease for the land it crosses. The chief questions about the pipeline are its stability and how long it will be needed as oil reserves decrease. Given the fact that the pipeline carries 17 percent of the nation's oil production, no one doubts that the pipeline's license to operate will be renewed. But depending upon what the study finds, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. could find itself operating with new restrictions in operating the line. The lease could also be renewed for less than the 30 years Alyeska has requested. The lease process will include a study of the environmental, economic and social impacts of the oil pipeline; its physical condition; and whether Alyeska has complied with regulations. When the pipeline was first proposed a generation ago, it touched off impassioned debate about the environmental impact of resource development in the wilderness of Alaska. Critics feared its effects on wildlife and habitat. Would caribou pass under the pipe? Would the heat of the oil melt the tundra? What about leaks and spills? In the 24 years since the pipeline began operating, the caribou population has thrived and heat transfer units atop the pipeline's pilings protect the permafrost. The worst oil spill occurred not along the pipeline itself, but in Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in March 1989. Spills caused by corrosion have been a problem in other lines in Alaska's North Slope, however. As the lease renewal process gets under way, environmentalists have new concerns. There are fears that global warming could melt permafrost, causing instability in some of the 78,000 vertical pilings that support the 420 miles of aboveground pipe. A bigger question in the minds of critics is just how long the pipeline can last. With only $3 billion worth of oil left on the slope, the chance of billions of dollars' investment in maintenance is believed unlikely. Alyeska says that with proper maintenance, monitoring and repair, the pipeline can last indefinitely. The company spends about $150 million a year on pipeline maintenance. Crews check the line each week by helicopter, and maintenance coordinators do a ground inspection once a month.
ENVIRO-WELD PROTECTS AGAINST "SPATTER" top
Enviro-weld is a non-toxic anti-spatter liquid developed by Assured Solutions and suitable for use in all welding applications. A clear, water-based product which does not contain harmful petroleum or chlorinated solvents, it is non-flammable, biodegradable and will not create fume hazards, making it friendly to both user and the environment. The formulation also provides short term protection against corrosion but does not contain silicone so that painting can be undertaken without further surface treatment. Enviro-weld is dispensed with a trigger spray and a light misting of the workpiece is all that is required prior to welding. It provides improved performance when working into corners and will not flash-off even on long runs. The puddling or capillary action between the joints, which can lead to weld porosity, is eliminated when correctly applied. A thin film is sufficient to reduce the adhesion of weld spatter, and it can be easily removed with wire brushing or light scraping.
SAFER BLACKING GOOD FOR TIGHT TOLERANCES top
Blacking of iron and steel provides a corrosion resistant finish without dimensional change. This is attractive for machined parts manufactured to tight tolerances. Blackfast's room temperature blacking process is said to be safe, easy and convenient. The process has been developed for reliable use in a metal working facility, so it is no longer necessary for parts to leave the production site for finishing by an outside contractor. More information at: http://www.blackfast.com.
NEW TRANSMITTER SEALS FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE top
ABB Automation has developed new diaphragm seals for remote pressure transmitters that are said to eliminate the need for costly exotic wetted materials in corrosive, high-temperature, high-vacuum processes. The S6 range of 600T EN seals features as standard a tough, corrosion-resistant Teflon PFA film that is hot-deposited on to a stainless steel diaphragm using a glue-free, chemical bonding process. As a result, the seal can cope with most corrosive process media and give reliable performance in working temperatures up to 250C and close to full vacuum working pressures. This compares with the maximum working temperatures of between 140C and 150C for the majority of standard remote seal coatings.
THERMICULITE - ALTERNATIVE TO ASBESTOS top
A 3m diameter gasket manufactured from Flexitallic's Thermiculite material has solved a tricky problem for Kemira Fertilisers at Ince, near Chester. The largest such Kammprofile gasket ever produced by Flexitallic, it is replacing a gasket in a nitric acid burner. Kemira needed to guarantee an efficient seal, keep downtime to a minimum and avoid the problem of oxidisation, but without resorting to asbestos. Thermiculite provided the answer with its 1000C+ resistance to chemicals, oxidisation and corrosion. According to product engineer Steve Densley, 'there is a major objective in the industry to find effective replacements for asbestos. We can provide solutions way beyond the asbestos performance limits'.
