Corrosion control for extreme conditions

Most people associate corrosion control with rust, which only happens in things made of ferrous metals such as steel girders, ships, iron pipes, steel reinforcement rods, and steel tanks and is the reason metals deteriorate and fail. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals corrode on contact with both fresh and saltwater as well as water vapour. They will also corrode when they come into contact with chemicals, liquid acids as well as acidic vapours, salts and bases, and bacteria.

Corrosion is also a problem in electronics from circuit breakers and contactors to wire bond connectors and soldered components on a printed circuit board. Electrical connectors and plugs are very prone to corrosion as well as non-ferrous metals and alloys such as copper and aluminium. For purposes here, corrosion can be defined as a chemical or electrochemical reaction between a material, usually a metal, and its environment that produces a deterioration of the material and its properties.

Corrosion is an increasingly serious and costly problem that can lead to plant and equipment failures which range from being an annoyance to being catastrophic. Failures caused by corrosion could and do lead to a direct failure of a component which could affect the entire system and can not only be very expensive in terms of down time to repair or replace plant and equipment, but can also prove to be very costly in loss of productivity but to human life.