The refineries, petrochemical, and chemical process industries face some of the most severe corrosion challenges for construction materials.
That’s because of the wide range of temperatures, pressures, and process media encountered by production equipment such as reactors, heat exchangers, pipes, pumps, and hydraulic and instrumentation tubes. Advanced material technologies can play a crucial role in accelerating industrial processes by solving corrosion problems.
There are many reasons for corrosion failures. These include improper material selection and pushing operating equipment beyond its performance parameters. But, the most common issue is the selection of inferior quality materials, particularly ones that contain intermetallic phases that lower corrosion resistance. These problems arise from improper process control and inadequate quality assurance processes by material producers.
For asset operators and component fabricators, it’s critical to weigh up the short-term smaller cost savings from buying lower-quality materials against the more expensive consequences of quality-related failures.
“There are several issues currently impacting the refineries, petrochemical, and chemical process industries,” says Rohit Ojha, Technical Marketing Specialist. “For refineries, increasing corrosion challenges from processing opportunity crudes continue. There’s also more focus on petrochemical integration, which has distinct corrosion challenges, and biofuel activity is increasing. However, we see lots of willingness from asset owners to invest in high-quality advanced materials. That’s because they recognize the benefits of safer operations without production losses and unscheduled maintenance costs.”
These were some key issues discussed at CORCON 2024, held recently in Chennai, India.
Alleima at CORCON 2024
CORCON 2024, organized by the India chapter of AMPP, is the largest corrosion event in Asia. As a leading manufacturer of advanced materials technologies for corrosion-resistant alloys, we believe CORCON provides a great platform to connect with our end customers and technology licensors.
This year’s event reinforced the message that our customers look to our advanced materials to withstand corrosion for their critical equipment. There was lots of interest in our grades Sanicro® 35 - a super-austenitic stainless steel alloy that bridges many material property gaps between stainless steel and costly nickel alloys - and our recently launched SAF™ 3006 . This is a high-alloy duplex stainless steel designed to enhance corrosion resistance in acidic and caustic environments.
“Industry feedback on Sanicro® 35 has been excellent, and demand is increasing,” says Jyoti Shankar Jha, Associate Lead Scientist. “Several customers were keen to discuss applications for this grade, especially where they had initially considered nickel alloys. And many were curious to know more about it SAF™ 3006 following its recent launch.
At CORCON 2024, we delivered two presentations which we well attended and received. The first presentation was titled "Corrosion Testing and Application Case Studies of Sanicro® 35: A High Performance-to-Cost Ratio Alloy for Refineries and the Chemical Process Industry". We discussed corrosion test data for Sanicro® 35 in several conditions and demonstrated how it advances the chemical process, iron and steel, and refineries and petrochemical industries. Sanicro® 35 has been used in many applications where it has demonstrated a superior performance-to-cost ratio and replaced materials such as Alloy 625, C-276, and 6-Mo steels.
We also discussed "Investigations of De-zincification Induced Failure in Aluminum Brass Heat Exchangers in Oil Refineries", exploring the premature failure of aluminum brass C68700 tubes in an oil refinery's heat exchanger, which failed within six months against a two-year service expectation. The refinery upgraded the tubes to UNS S32707 as a longer-lasting alternative.
Your progressive partner
CORCON 2024 demonstrated once again our commitment to working together with our Asian customers in moving industries and innovation in the region ever forward to be more efficient, profitable, and sustainable. Our materials make the difference. Our expertise makes it work
