£According to Swansea University, the team is developing a “smart release” inhibitor for use in coated steels. It works by “channeling aggressive electrolyte anions into the coating” and triggering the release of the inhibitor “on demand.”

“This is a significant breakthrough, showing a smarter and safer way of reducing corrosion. The new product is environmentally sound, economical and outperforms the market leader in laboratory tests,” said Swansea professor and team leader Geraint Williams. 

The system is being developed as an alternative to hexavalent chromate, which will be prohibited in the European Union in 2019.

“The system has been shown to prevent the onset of corrosion for over 24 hours compared to less than two hours for the current market leader.  We have also been able to demonstrate that the rate of corrosion can be slowed down significantly once it has started. This is by far the best result seen in 15 years of research on this topic,” said Patrick Dodds, a Swansea doctoral student who is credited with discoveries behind the material and the manufacturing process for it. 

For their work, the team has been awarded the £25,000 Materials Science Venture Prize. The prize is awarded by The Worshipful Company of Armourers & Brasiers, a U.K.-based charitable group that supports, among other things, education and research in metallurgy and materials science.  

The team is continuing to develop the system and move it toward commercialization. Tata Steel Colors is a co-funder of the project.