Without corrosion protection, the annual expenses of industrial corrosion damages that ultimately lead to machinery failure and production losses can be exorbitant. As pipelines, tubing, fasteners, and other industrial equipment is subject to adverse environmental conditions, water, sea salt, and chemicals, anti-corrosion coatings are an indispensable need. The marine environment is a very aggressive working atmosphere, where structural materials and
components are exposed to ultraviolet radiation, a chloride-rich salty environment, frequent wetting and drying cycles, high humidity, the attack of biological microorganisms and marine bacteria. It is well known that graphene it can act as corrosion inhibitor. Nevertheless, graphene itself is often not suitable as a drop-in solution to create final commercial products. Graphene -based intermediary products offer a solution to this problem, enabling customers to proceed in a more affordable way to create their own graphene-based products for the market, incorporating the intermediary products into existing products to enhance their performance.
Since more than one year GrapheneUP introduced into the market ADDIGUP® S, a graphene-based additive specifically designed to provide superior physical properties to solvent borne paints and coatings.
ADDIGUP® S is an environmentally friendly high performance additive, with superior anti-corrosion properties, which does not employ conventional toxic/carcinogenic heavy-metal anti-corrosion pigments such as chromates and lead compounds, not even less toxic but sacrificial zinc/zinc compounds while providing heavy-duty corrosion protections to a wide range of metals including zinc and aluminium. This exciting graphene-based anti-corrosion additive provides an excellent solution to the urgent needs of heavy metals-free anti-corrosion coatings. For steels, ADDIGUP® S provides a smarter solution with higher effectiveness, friendlier to the environment, scratch tolerant/self-healing and much longer performance life. Already several industry players have used ADDIGUP® S to develop their own anti-corrosion paints & coatings.
We are very pleased to announce the excellent results recently achieved by our client from Bavaria with ADDIGUP® S. The coatings evaluated by the client, with and without ADDIGUP® S, were applied on R4 steel grade panels of 100×75 mm2.
Immersion tests (ISO 2812-2 ) were performed to evaluate the resistance of the coatings to water immersion. The coatings with ADDIGUP S passed 3000 hours of immersions, achieving the Im2 (high) category whereas the coating without graphene not reached the 2000 hours.
The coatings were also exposed to neutral salt spray conditions to evaluate the resistance to a saline corrosive environment (ISO 9227). The failure of the coating without graphene, considering the high amount of ferric corrosion and the presence of a blister in the coating and the corrosion exceeding 1 mm from the scratch on the scribed samples, was estimated at 783 hours. On the other hand, the coating using ADDIGUP S, with a concentration of graphene of 0.35 wt% overcame the 2860 h of exposure to salt spray, showing no ferric corrosion coming from the steel substrates, and proving an effective protection in such an aggressive atmosphere. Thus, the graphene-based coating was classified as belonging to the C5-M (high) category (ISO 12944-6)
According to a recent study from market research firm Graphical Research, the Europe anti-corrosion coatings market is poised to expand at substantial CAGR during the forecast period.
The European anti-corrosion coatings market size exceeded USD $3,214 million in 2020 and is anticipated to exhibit a CAGR of 4.1% between 2021 and 2027. The growing energy sector, increasing need for new infrastructure, and rising installations of metal-based structures are set to fuel the market demand.
Tough offshore environments particularly require superior abrasion and corrosion resistance to boost the longevity of expensive equipment. The European anti-corrosion coatings market outlook is likely to gain from custom-made solutions for onshore and offshore equipment.
Application of epoxy coatings to metal surfaces is a widespread practice across several industrial applications as they possess exceptional anti-chemical, anti-rust, and anti-abrasion properties. Apart from marine and construction industries, the oil & gas industry is expected to require epoxy coatings.
About GrapheneUP®
GrapheneUP® is a leading graphene company with the largest production of few-layer graphene in Europe with an innovative proprietary method.
Graphene itself is often unsuitable as drop-in solution to create final commercial products. To accelerate the process of integration of graphene into final products, GraphenUP® developed a line of intermediary products under the GUP® Products brand name. GUP® Products goes and enables customers to proceed in a more affordable way to create their own graphene-based products for
the markets, incorporating graphene GUP® into existing products to enhance their performance or with the purpose to create new innovative commercial products with graphene.
Forward-Looking Statement
This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by GrapheneUP. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The most significant of these factors include, but are not limited to, the following: the performance of financial markets, the investment performance of sponsored investment products and separately-managed accounts, general economic conditions, industry trends, future acquisitions, competitive conditions, and current and proposed government regulations, including changes in tax regulations and rates and the manner in which the earnings of publicly-traded partnerships are taxed. GrapheneUP cautions readers to carefully consider such factors and assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.
Website: grapheneup.com
