Microbial induced corrossion

Installer
HydroFLOW USA

Customer
Boise Paper Mill Wallula, Washington – USA.

Application
W3 Starch Line.

Installed Unit
HydroFLOW i120.

Background
Bacteria settles in grooves inside a steel pipe and starts secreting corrosive acid. The secreted acid starts dissolving the pipe from the inside out and forms rust colonies that develop into pin-hole leaks over a period of a few months.

Note: The rust colonies are not “biofilm”; they’re patches of oxidized steel.

Success Factors

• Hydropath Technology is expected to cause the bacteria to leave the rust colonies inside the contaminated pipe spool section and stop the steel oxidization process. This will occur due to the unique Hydropath electric signal which passes along the steel pipe and agitates the bacteria.
• Hydropath is expected to prevent new rust colonies from forming inside the contaminated and clean pipe spool sections.

Result

• New rust colonies did not form inside the contaminated and clean pipe spool sections.
• The flow of liquid inside the starch line began a slow and gradual break-down of the existing rust colonies.

for the full case study please click on the PDF.

View PDF version