Sunday, January 30, 2011

Protective Coatings as Corrosion Control Method

What are Protective Coatings?

By now, it is clear that when an uncoated metal or steel structure comes into contact with the environment, the result is corrosion. To help prevent and seriously slow down the corrosion process, protective coatings are essentially designed.

Protective coatings are all about the principle of keeping the things that cause corrosion away from a certain surface. In addition, these can also be used to provide passive fire protection for structural steel.

Metallic substrates, mostly carbon steel, will corrode in the absence of a protective coating, which will eventually result in the reduction of the service life of the steel part or component. Both organic and metallic coatings are thus used to provide protection against corrosion of these metallic substrates. 

In a simple way, how do Protective Coatings work?

How to Stop Rust – Better Alternatives and Modern Approaches

Is there a better way for corrosion to be deterred and eventually stopped? 

What alternative and modern materials will stop rust? 

How true is it that rust cannot be prevented, at all?

These are the common questions brought about by age-old dilemmas associated with corrosion control and rust removal.

As more and more industries needs better solutions to combat rust in metals and other alloys, alternative and modern solutions were closely formulated to answer this call. 

Rust Inhibitors: What are they for?

Rust inhibitor is a chemical compound that is added to liquid or gas and decreases the rate of corrosion of a certain material, usually in the form of metals.

In case you have lots of tools or metal items that you need to protect from rust, you need to use a rust inhibitor. Why let them just rust away and suffer all the costly damages when you can minimise and prevent them?

Remember that once rust sets gradually in a metal, it will continue to eat away at it until it's completely broken or unusable, if you do not apply it with a rust remover.

The Many Ways of Preventing Rust

Imagine rust "eats" away the metal, rendering it weak and fragile. As the bare metal surface comes and stays in contact with oxygen present in the air or water, the rust gradually occupies the whole surface. This chemical reaction in metal and other alloys is called oxidation. This is due to the transfer of electrons from iron to oxygen.

Likewise, other metallic compounds react with oxygen to form their oxides. Steel and iron are found to rust more easily than other metals. By preventing the direct physical contact of iron with oxygen present in air or water we will also prevent the build-up of rust in metal compounds and other alloys.

The following are different specific methods of rust prevention for vehicles and other metallic objects that are continuously exposed to several rust causing factors.