CORCON 2022 in Udaipur, India, was an excellent opportunity to interact with our customers and share our industry insights.
Alleima, is fully committed to strengthening our position as a world-leading manufacturer of high-value products in advanced stainless steels and special alloys, as well as products for industrial heating. It was an excellent opportunity to interact with our customers and share our industry insights at the recent CORCON 2022 in Udaipur, India.
The annual conference, Asia's largest conference on corrosion, gathers over 1,000 global industry leaders to tackle corrosion issues through science and engineering. As the world is facing more challenges with ageing infrastructure, advocates of corrosion mitigation must unite and address the need to move towards the development of sustainable infrastructure.
Key trend from the event
CORCON 2022 focused on dealing with corrosion issues in various industries, such as Refineries, Oil & Gas and City Gas Distribution. Based on conversations on-ground, we observed that there is an increase in demand for materials in process equipment due to the challenge of processing more complicated opportunity crudes (opcrudes). Processing opcrudes requires an integrated approach of identifying the process and equipment design, and refiners should evaluate the challenges in order to stay competitive for the long term.
The demand for materials in process equipment increases when reliability of processing opcrudes is poor, have short run lengths, require long turnarounds as well as high operating and maintenance costs. As such, the immediate solution is to have in place an investment to eliminate existing unit shortcomings. When refiners are more aware of the relations between the type of opcrudes required to produce, its process and equipment design that specifically account for the unique properties of the opcrudes, they will be able to examine failure modes and find solutions to tackle these challenges.
Supporting the Indian market in corrosion challenges
As an expert in materials technology and industrial processes, Alleima enables our customers to become safer and more efficient. We continuously partner with our customers to help them understand how corrosive environments in applications affect the different materials and which alloys are suited for specific operating conditions.
In 2012, Alleima embarked on a research project that focused on addressing the market’s requirements for a stainless steel alloy that could combine corrosion properties with higher mechanical strength. Eight years later, Sanicro® 35 was launched globally. This super-austenitic stainless steel, which combines high yield strength, resistance in severe acidic conditions, and excellent pitting and crevice corrosion resistance, bridges the gap between super-austenitic steel grades and nickel alloys. It provides a new, high-performance alternative to conventional materials to support more cost-effective and efficient operations. Sanicro® 35 is well positioned compared to nickel alloys for challenging applications in refineries and petrochemicals. Since being launched in 2020, we have installed this alloy in several refineries and chemical companies across the US, Europe and India, and it has performed outstandingly.
To date, Sanicro® 35 has received two awards, the Sandvik Innovation Prize in 2019 and the MP Corrosion Innovation of the Year Awards in 2021.
Importance of heat treatments and quality control
Good heat treatment processing and quality control are vital for any manufacturing process to prevent application failures. The material has to be processed under strictly controlled conditions to get the desired properties. If a material is not heat treated properly, undesired phases such as sigma phase and chromium nitrides could form, leading to premature application failures. The fully integrated production process and stringent quality control of Alleima ensure that our products can deliver and solve a wide range of application challenges faced by manufacturers.
The future of Alleima in India
With over 160 years of experience and presence globally, our products have an excellent track record in many industries. In India, our focus on Refineries, Fertilizers and Chemical industries have seen the expansion of our Mehsana Mill to continue supporting our customers through their corrosion challenges locally and regionally.
India’s manufacturing industry is growing steadily, and as a result, our customers and their requirements are also increasing. Supply chains across the globe are re-aligning, and India is well in place to address gaps, with a key focus on sustainability.
Our customers across industries consider Alleima an innovative materials technology provider as we have been advancing the processes and applications in some of the most demanding industries.
CORCON 2022 was an excellent opportunity for us to meet our customers face-to-face again, and already we’re looking forward to more of such events in the future.
Contact our team of experts today for more information about our products and services.
Written by: Rohit Ojha, Lead Scientist R&D, Alleima