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How can I protect stainless steel pipes from Chlorides and Chlorine corrosion [Ireland] 

July 5, 2008

We use process water from our wells in our factory. The water contains chlorides and we chlorinate the water for disinfection purposes. We then heat the water to 90 deg C. We find that our 316 stainless steel pipes are pitting and corroding. What can we do to protect the pipework? I really appreciate any help you can give.

Tom Rowan
environmental consultant -Meath, Ireland

IF chlorides are your only problem, running the water thru granulated activated carbon with a reasonable residence time will remove most of it. Next in price, you could try reverse osmosis (RO). The correct deionization system (DI) can selectively remove most anything from water, it is however expensive to operate and requires appropriate attention to the operation and the regeneration cycle to prevent unwanted failures and down time. There is an outside chance that ultra filtration might work, but it also is not cheap.
Water softening will not help you.

James Watts
- FL

Unfortunately, stainless steel is stain"less" not stain"free". ProtectaClear is a clear protective coating that has resins that are highly resistant to salts and chlorines, has excellent adhesion on stainless steel and may be able to solve your problem.

Teresa Sedmak Everbrite, Inc.     Reno, Nevada