The Smart Solution for Corrosion Protection at Airport Tank Farms

 


Airports go through hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel each day, requiring tank farms to store plenty of reserve fuel onsite. These aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) are under strict regulations to ensure physical and environmental safety, including the protection of tank floors from corrosion. While cathodic protection (CP) has long been a go-to for corrosion inhibition, the last two decades of tank protection have seen CorroLogic® Vapor phase Corrosion Inhibitors become a new industry standard that offers a smart solution for protecting storage tanks at airports and beyond.

Why Protect Airport ASTs from Corrosion?
Corrosion protection of storage tank bottoms has many incentives. Corrosion eats away at the metal floor, ultimately leading to hazardous leaks if left unchecked and unrepaired. Any measures that prevent corrosion and reduce repairs can therefore save time, money, and hassle in the long run. CP is often used to inhibit corrosion by sending an electrical current through the tank pad that offsets the normal electrochemical reaction of a corrosion cell. If the tank floor stays in contact with the electrical current, corrosion is mitigated. However, because tank floors are uneven and can bend and create air pockets as the tank is filled and refilled, some areas of the tank floor will not be in constant contact with the treated sand pad, allowing for patches of corrosion.

CorroLogic®, on the other hand, is distributed by vapor action. Once the corrosion inhibitors are present under the tank floor, they begin to diffuse throughout the void space, forming a protective molecular layer on all metal surfaces they reach. This allows CorroLogic® to protect the bottom of the tank independently or in conjunction with CP. Research suggests these two methods may have a synergistic effect when used together. Further to the user’s advantage, CorroLogic® does not require a power source and can be applied at any stage in a tank’s lifecycle—during construction or even after the tank is filled and in service, minimizing the loss of time and money required to drain high volumes of fuel. With positive results seen from the last 20 years of CorroLogic® field trials, the underlying Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor (VCI) technology has recently been codified in industry standards: API Technical Report 655 and AMPP SP21474-2023.

As with any industry that involves ASTs, the aviation sector needs solutions to corrosion that make sense practically and economically. CorroLogic® measures up to that standard as a relatively non-invasive technology with vapor-phase action that complements the deficiencies of other protective strategies and continues working even when CP power is off.

Source: Cortec® Corporation

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