Development of high output Al-anode (Hopal) for cathodic protection

Protection of steel structures from seawater corrosion by cathodic protection is widely practised and the technology involving anode materials, designing and instrumentation to meet the specific service requirements is ever growing. A high current output aluminium anode has been developed at the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur which can be used for intrinsic applications such as for the protection of off-shore drilling and processing platforms. At present the corrosion mitigation problem with the oil platforms at Bombay High is met by importing aluminium anodes. The anode developed at NML will be able to substitute the imported anode. Various properties of the anode material including its electrochemical properties, castability, susceptibility to intergranular corrosion and performance at elevated temperatures have been incorporated in the paper. (Shri A.N. Mukherjee, K.P. Mukherjee and Prof. V.A. Altekar, National Metallurgical Laboratory)