Welcome to the mid-June 2020 Corrosionpedia News Roundup. Corrosionpedia releases a fresh News Roundup every other week to provide a summary of the most important headlines in the world of corrosion prevention, monitoring and science. This edition takes a look at an exciting development for coating complex parts created by additive manufacturing. Also highlighted in this news roundup are corrosion repairs for a bridge, corrosion modeling software and the release of a nano coating for electronics.
Coating Method Developed for Additive Manufactured Parts
A team of researchers at Rutgers University has taken an existing coating method and used it for the first time to successfully coat 3D-printed components. The process is called electrospray deposition, which creates very fine droplets of coating material by applying electricity to the nozzle. This enables the nanoparticle coating material to penetrate hard-to-reach places.
One of the major benefits of additive manufacturing is that components can be made with very complex geometries. However, these complex geometries can also make them very difficult to coat. The electrospray deposition coating process developed at Rutgers University alleviates this issue to some degree while also providing a way to apply a wide variety of coating materials.
Corrosion Repair Begins on Bridge in England
Work recently began on the Boston Town Bridge in Lincolnshire, England to protect it from corrosion. The bridge will be blast cleaned and recoated to improve the corrosion resistance of portions of the bridge's structure. For instance, some portions of the bridge's support can come into contact with the saltwater underneath it, thus speeding up the corrosion process. New coatings will be placed in those areas to mitigate that risk. Several lanes of traffic will be closed while the work is performed. The project is only being done for preventative measures and no failures have occurred in the bridge’s structural components.
Solar Module Receives Corrosion Test Certification
TÜV Nord AG, a technical testing and certifying organization, recently gave JinkoSolar its first ever certification for salt mist corrosion performance on one of its solar module product lines. The Tiger Pro Series is a line of high-efficiency solar modules manufactured by JinkoSolar made to perform in areas such as regions near the ocean that are exposed to high levels of saltwater and salt mist. While it is popular to deploy solar equipment in these regions due to the large amounts of sunshine they receive, the salinity and moisture can quickly cause equipment to fail. Receiving this certification means the Tiger Pro Series modules are very well-suited to resist corrosion in these types of environments.
New Partnership Creates Cutting-Edge Corrosion Modeling System
KBC, an oil and gas software and consulting services provider, and OLI Systems, a electrolyte systems software company, have joined forces to create a combination of their software that can be used to create a digital model simulation of real world equipment. KBC Petro-Sim® from KBC and OLI's Alliance Engine are the two software apps that have merged through the partnership. The combined application will allow companies to make a “digital twin” of their oil and gas assets and run various simulations that determine where there may be risks for corrosion or fouling. This could enable application users to prevent failures by detecting it first in a digital simulation.
Corroded Flint Water Line Replacement Project Resumes
The city of Flint, Michigan will resume its work to replace the lead water lines that caused a national outrage and a state of emergency in 2014. The Flint Water Crisis was caused by high levels of lead in the Flint water system and the lack of a corrosion inhibitor in the system. (For more on this story, read The Role of Corrosion in the Flint Water Crisis.) The line replacement work was temporarily suspended due to the risks associated with workers spreading COVID-19 as they came into contact with residents while performing pipe replacements. Before the work was halted, the project was mostly completed, and the project is still expected to be finished by the end of the year. The replacement project began in 2017, and although water is now deemed safe to drink, the lines are being replaced to eliminate lead pipes from the water system.
New Coating Released for Electronics
Favored Tech, a company based in California, recently released products that have been coated with FT-Nano Green 1008. The coating developed by Favored Tech prevents the corrosion of electronic equipment. FT-Nano Green 1008 is a nano coating, meaning it is extremely thin and helps protect parts against oil, dirt and moisture that have the potential to cause corrosion in electronic devices. The coating does not have any halogens in its makeup and adheres to standards such as REACH, RoHS and WEEE. Favored Tech highlighted that it is a very cost-effective coating, and even manufacturers of budget consumer electronics can add it to their products at little additional cost.