The surface treatment and coatings industry is experiencing a shift towards developing new eco-friendly and organic options. Some in the industry are also looking to develop some bio-degradable coatings. Manoj Saraf, MD & CEO, Multicoat Coating Technologies closely looks at significance of corrosion and how industry is gearing for it.

 

Why corrosion protection and surface treatment are important for industries?

Corrosion failures in plant infrastructure are costly to repair and can result in contaminated product, environmental damage, and risks to human safety. Estimates for the overall cost of corrosion relating to oil & gas, power generation and other key industries exceed $150 billion annually.

 

Corrosion is the degradation of materials due to biotic and abiotic interactions. Generally corrosion is understood as oxidation of metals due to environmental exposure, however, corrosion is not just limited to metals. It encompasses a wide range of materials, including metals, plastics, concrete, wood etc. Corrosion protection and surface modification are important for industries to increase the functional & economic service life of plant, machinery, building, pipeline etc. or in other words to increase the effective yield of assets and production.

 

Coatings play a very important role in corrosion prevention, since they form a barrier to ingress of corrosive ions and/or attack of biotic elements in colonising any substrate. This helps in the multiplication of functional and economical value of an asset positively, depending upon various variables such as environment, type of coating, composition or metallurgy of the substrate, interaction of the coating with the environment or media etc.

 

What products & solutions do you offer for corrosion protection and surface treatment? 

We work in two special areas of mitigation of fouling corrosion for process industries and mitigation of high temperature corrosion. We offer antifouling coatings for process equipment, heat exchanges, gas coolers and condensers which prevent interaction of biotic and abiotic elements with the equipment, thereby, significantly improving performance, output and useful functional life of the equipment. We are amongst the few companies in India, manufacturing high temperature coatings for various functional and protective applications for service temperatures above 1200°C. We also manufacture Boron Nitride Coatings for protection of equipment in contact with molten non-ferrous metal.

 

What should be the criteria for coating selection to protect/prevent against corrosion?

Globally a lot of work has been done in the area of selection of coatings to protect against corrosion and many international standards have been drafted such as ISO 12944 which guides the users to select the right paint system by matching the various variables in which the said coating has to perform. Furthermore, the criteria for coating selection should be to first understand the physics and chemistry of degradation/corrosion in view of the various variable in which the material has to perform and then to find a solution/coating which mitigates the problem considering the variables.

 

What are some of the emerging trends in surface treatment Industry?

We are moving towards low VOC coating and are working on designing antifouling coatings based on aqueous resin systems in line with the emerging trend that the coating and surface treatment industry moves toward eco-friendly products.

 

Where is India compared to global eco-friendly corrosive control technology?

India is lagging far behind since we do not reinvest our profits back into research activities. With regard to eco-friendly technologies are concerned, we are behind the global leaders.

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"India is lagging far behind since we do not reinvest our profits back into research activities. With regard to eco-friendly technologies are concerned, we are behind the global leaders."

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