Pipe & Equipment Isolation
In metallic pipelines, corrosion is nature’s constant progression to reduce pipelines to their original oxide state.
It is an electrochemical reaction that has four parts: anode, cathode, metallic path and electrolyte. Flange isolation and joint isolation are a means of preventing electrochemical reactions from occurring between two dissimilar metals by breaking the metallic path, or preventing the current in a cathodic protection (CP) from travelling beyond the area intended to be protected by the CP system. Cathodic protection systems (whether impressed current or passive) are designed to protect primary assets as electrical protection is limited in range. ACP system prevents corrosion by converting all of the anodic (active) sites on the metal surface of a pipeline to cathodic (passive) sites by supplying electrical current (or free electrons) from an alternate source to equalise the potential on the surface of the metal structure.