Shabareesh Nair - Tubacex Group
Corrosion is the biggest problem in refinery and petrochemical industry. The world loses approximately 500 billion
USD every year and approximately 170 billion USD alone is lost in the Oil & Gas Industry due to various types
of corrosion. Industrial research is continuously conducted on various methods to reduce corrosion and
enhance steel life to achieve more productivity. Over the years, many stainless steel and Corrosion
Resistant Alloys (CRAs) have been developed for moderate to severely corrosive environments. However,
the costs of advanced stainless and CRA’s are very high and that is one of the reasons there is a strong need for
an efficient and cost-effective solution to combat corrosion concerns.
This paper focuses on a new improved economic solution, TUBACOAT, an advanced coating solution for
fighting corrosion where most material solutions can fail or else the cost of the advanced material solution is too
high. The need of the hour is a solution that is both technically and commercially viable in given process
and application. This solution includes a tailor-made ceramic mixture which is applied to the base material
and then sintered to achieve perfect bonding with the substrate (base metal). This solution deals with a wide range of applications in various corrosive environments resisting acidic corrosion, erosion-corrosion, corrosion caused by deposits, etc., enhancing the life of the material and reducing the operating expenditure of the process.
The ceramic coated tube offers efficient and environmentally friendly solutions to protect valuable assets
from corrosion, abrasion and other forms of structural degradation, increasing the service life of critical
components and minimizing operation and maintenance costs over the investment lifetime.
The other advantage is the energy savings possible due
to improved heat transfer efficiency in the equipment’s dealing with heat transfer and the chemical
inertness and coking resistance offered by the coated solution. Some studies have been done and
results are included in the presentation.
This presentation also shares the results of on-field application in a refinery, i.e. a coke calciner recuperator
wherein the coated tube results have resulted in a higher lifetime of the tubes and eventually improving the
life of the equipment.