Tekniker joins the industry in its fight against corrosion

The Corrosion Awareness Day will take place today, April 24, to underscore the effects corrosion produces in terms of our society and its industries. As regards developed countries, it has been estimated this phenomenon costs between 3% - 4% of their GDP, although an even higher figure has been reported in the case of developing countries. Its importance is due to the fact that it first appears in the manufacturing processes of materials and components and eventually harms the durability of materials under working conditions. Consequently, this produces negative transversal effects for a number of sectors such as aerospace, shipbuilding or biomedicine.

Many efforts will be required to investigate and fully understand the causes and effects of connected to this phenomenon in different scenarios and to also implement any actions required to minimise negative effects, cost and harmful consequences. It has been estimated, in fact, that about one third of corrosion-related costs could be avoided by implementing monitoring measures.

This explains why Tekniker, member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), is currently cooperating with the metal-mechanic industry to support and advise companies on how they must diagnose, monitor and prevent failures in metallic materials produced by in-service corrosion. The technology centre has extensive experience in studies addressing the corrosion and protection of metallic materials in hostile environments and has been involved in several European and national research projects.

Tekniker’s technological developments focused on modifying the surface of materials and producing new coatings have produced multifunctional surfaces with enhanced corrosion and wear resistance features to cope with hostile working conditions.

Likewise, and thanks to the multidisciplinary character of the technology centre and to the support provided by an extensive range of corrosion testing options, it is nowadays possible to perform in-depth evaluations on how materials behave in different corrosive environments. Assessments and validations of the solutions developed by different surface technologies have also been carried out: PVD, plasma electrooxidation (PEO), sol-gel, pigment functionalisation for organic paint, etc.

In this regard, Tekniker’s corrosion laboratory owns several potentiostats (electrochemical corrosion) and climatic chambers to run accelerated tests and validate solutions according to standard trials (ISO 9227, ISO 6270, ISO 12944, etc.). The organisation also has a laboratory dealing with tribology, metallography and material failure diagnostics to complement studies looking into the mechanical behaviour of materials and the solutions developed for this purpose.