Corrosion is highly insidious to economies all around the world. Market researchers state that the annual cost or revenue losses to corrosion across the globe are over 5000 billion dollars. The revenue losses due to corrosion in India itself account for almost 100 billion dollars annually which is almost 5 per cent of its GDP. These stats show a picture of the havoc that corrosion causes on the economy of industries.

There are many factors that play a major role in the corrosion of equipment. However, airborne molecular contamination (ABMC) is the biggest culprit for this menace. AMC is a byproduct of the increasing industrialization.

The increase in demand for services and products has increased the levels of pollutants in the air that cause pollution. Atmospheric air in industries is highly contaminated with gases like NO_x, SO_x ammonia, H2S, hydrocarbons, O₃ and harmful organic matter. These contaminants originated inside the industries speed up the process of corrosion, leading to frequent failures in electronic equipment and heavy machinery. Corrosion at even macro level can lead to failure of controls and therefore downtime of production processes, resulting in high revenue losses.

The solution in such a situation is the use of gas phase filtration systems.

 What is the gas phase filtration?

Gas phase filtration is an ideal and cost-effective solution to airborne molecular contamination. In this process, the contaminated air is made to pass through pre-filters which trap suspended particles in the air. After this process, the air is made to pass through chemical media beds that destroy all the remaining gaseous impurities. The chemical media can be either activated alumina or activated carbon which is impregnated with various proprietary chemicals. One can use the combinations depending upon the requirements and the concentration of impurities that are present in the air. The gas phase filtration process not only removes contaminated and suspended particles but also removes odour to provide a perfect and healthy environment for equipment.

Role of Gas Phase Filtration Systems in Various Industries

• Telecom Industry

The base trans-receiver station is a major part of the network switching subsystems in the telecom industry. It contains several highly sophisticated and costly equipment that serve different purposes. If the station is in the proximity of an area which has high traffic or industries located nearby, the chances of corrosion to the costly equipment become high. The gas phase filtration systems help in protecting this equipment from abrupt failures due to corrosion. They purify the air through chemisorption and adsorption processes which neutralize the contaminants. The cleaning of air is at the molecular level which leaves no chance for any pollutants to harm the equipment.

• Oil and Petroleum Refineries

The processing parameters in oil and petrochemical refineries are very critical. Even a tiny malfunction can lead to disastrous results for both the economic and human resources of the enterprises. The refineries generate a fair amount of contaminant gases like NO2, SO2 and many others. These toxic gases cause speedy corrosion to machinery and electronic equipment present in the refinery. Therefore, it is essential for manufacturers to use gas phase filtrations in the refinery to prevent their equipment.

• Pulp and Paper Industry

The pulp and paper industry has been the leading industry in inducting computer process controls equipment in its day-to-day operations. The necessity to maximize the productivity and efficiency of operation has led to high reliability on electronic process control systems in this sector. However, protecting these electronic systems from the harmful gases present in the surroundings of a pulp and paper mill is difficult. The areas such as boiler rooms, waste treatment rooms and others have a high presence of harmful gases like hydrogen sulphide, chlorine, sulphur dioxide, and carbon monoxide. These gases can increase the rate of corrosion in the equipment leading to downtime of operations. Therefore, it is important that manufacturers use filtration systems to avoid these failures.

• DC/Server Rooms

Distributed Control Systems (DCS) are systems dedicated to controlling the manufacturing processes that are repetitive and continuous. The server rooms where these systems are kept have a major role to play in the protection of this equipment. The presence of corrosive gases in these rooms can lead to micro-corrosion in the systems. Which is why, with the control of humidity and temperature, gaseous contamination control is also important.

Airborne contamination poses high challenges and risks to all kinds of equipment and devices in industries. Businesses today have a high dependency on their machinery, and any failure in them can lead to high revenue losses. The contaminants in the air cannot be removed by simple filtration systems; therefore, gas phase filtration systems are considered to be the best solutions to the contamination problems.