Innovative PDC Coatings for Corrosion Protection in the Oil and Gas Industry

One of the major issues in the energy intensive industries (EIIs) operation is corrosion control. Particularly, in refineries, corrosion causes 33% of malfunctions, especially due to the deterioration of the metallic materials and, therefore, the shortening of the useful life of equipment and installations. To face this problem, novel polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) coatings have been formulated, developed and characterized by physical and chemical tests. Different formulations were analyzed on a lab-scale through accelerated corrosion tests under acidic environments using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to evaluate their corrosion performance when exposed to near-real operating conditions. The optimized formulation will be used as a barrier in stainless-steel pipelines to improve the energy performance of EIIs by reducing energy losses due to excess cooling of components, maximizing the thermal efficiency of equipment, increasing the service life of equipment and reducing operation and maintenance (O&M) costs and downtime.