UI Professor: The Continuous Corrosion Will Cause Economic Losses

Professor of the Permanent Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia (FTUI) Rini Riastuti. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Permanent Professor of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia (FTUI) Rini Riastuti stated that corrosion that damages the metal structure that continues to occur will cause economic and health losses.

Corrosion is known to the public as carat (rust). Metal corrosion occurs due to a decrease in the quality or destruction of metal surfaces in an aggressive environment in the form of fluids, gas, or soil.

According to Prof. Rini Riastuti at the UI Depok Campus, West Java, Friday, July 7, the corrosion caused visual appearance of objects to become poor and the industry experienced a plant downtime because it had to replace the corrosed equipment.

"Corruption also causes loss of product due to leakage of containers, tanks, or piping, as well as loss of efficiency because the industry costs quite high," he said, as quoted by Antara.

In addition to economic losses, metal corrosion can also cause health-dependent contamination. For example, if the food packaging cans in it will be contaminated with a white tin coat in a peeling can.

Therefore, efforts need to be made to control and inhibit corrosion reactions. Several efforts can be made to control and inhibit corrosion reactions.

Namely through the use of safe inhibitors. Inhibitors are chemicals (organic and inorganic) that are added to the system in small amounts, and form a passive layer on the metal surface that will be protected.

Usually inhibitors are in the form of liquid or steam used in water and oil or gas transportation pipes.

"Currently, students from the Department of Metalurgy and Materials of FTUI are conducting a lot of research on the use of plants, both leaves, fruit, and bark, to be used as inhibitors," he said.

An example that has been studied is betel leaf, green tea leaf, white tea leaves, soursop leaves, red spinach leaves, jamblang fruit, slicang wood, mangosteen fruit skin and many more.

All of these ingredients contain polyphenolic and anthocyanin substances as high antioxidants which are expected to become environmentally friendly inhibitors.

Efforts to prevent metal corrosion can also be done using a coating method, such as electric layers, galvanization, and organic coating (cat).

Layers basically provide barriers (barriers) to inhibit water and oxygen in direct contact with the iron surface.

In addition, metal protection using the method of katodic protection can be an option for large industries. This method can be done using victim anodes or compressed currents.

Rini assessed that the corrosion process never stopped. For this reason, socialization is needed related to corrosion, starting from the level of education, the function of the personnel needed, as well as courses and training on corrosion cases.