Editor’s Note: We are pleased to have the opportunity to publish the 4th of our series of dairies from the YEP 24 winners.

Corrosion, Sustainability and Communication at AMPP 2025 – Amy Johnstone

My name is Amy Johnstone, and I work in the offshore structures team at Kent. Originally graduating as a mechanical engineer in 2017, I worked in various mechanical engineering and technical advisory roles before starting my current job as a structural engineer in May 2023. Over this time, I began to work more and more on materials and corrosion scopes, including my current role as a materials and corrosion engineer on the Berwick Bank and Mona and Morgan offshore wind farms. All that means is I get to work on a rich variety of interesting projects, but that I panic a bit when people ask me what sort of engineer I am. I applied to the Institute of Corrosion’s Young Engineers Programme because I wanted to delve a bit deeper and back up my on-the-job learning by picking up where my Chemistry GCSE left off.

After a year-long programme of lectures and mentoring, I was delighted when my team won the award for best case study presentation and the opportunity to attend the AMPP 2025 Conference and Expo. One of the key themes I noticed cutting across a wide variety of technical presentations was how corrosion engineers can support sustainability objectives. In the following sections, I will delve into just two of the many insightful technical presentations and panel discussions which were in one way or another related to this topic.

ILife Cycle Check of Anode Alloys for Cathodic Protection of Marine Energy Infrastructure [1]

Lisbeth Rischel Hilbert – Associate Partner, IPU

Every product or asset that engineers may work on has a wide range of localised and remote impacts on the environment during extraction, manufacturing, installation, use and disposal. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) may be used to assess and quantify these impacts [2]; however, thecomprehensiveness required to produce a good LCA means that it can be unwieldy and difficult to complete if there are several unknowns. A Life Cycle Check (LCC) methodology has been put forward as a lighter touch alternative to an LCA, following the same principles but targeting the check towards limited areas of interest to inform decision-making.

In this presentation, Lisbeth Hilbert presented IPU’s work using an LCC methodology to compare two different aluminium anode alloys given in ISO 9351:2025 [3], alloys “A3” and “A5”. A key difference between the two is that A5 has a lower zinc content than A3, 0.3% to 0.8% mass fraction compared to 4.75% to 5.75%. In the marine environment, toxicity of materials to the surrounding ecosystem is a key concern and therefore an important facet to consider in the LCC. Studies such as Ebeling et al. 2023 [4] have shown that metal emissions from galvanic anodes on offshore structures can be found in the surface sediments in the surrounding environment. As offshore wind is set to play a key part in a transition to a more sustainable energy system, initiatives such as the Anemoi programme [5] have been set up to better understand these effects of metal emissions and the available mitigations. Another dimension of sustainability examined in the LCC was Global Warming Potential (GWP). This is a complex measure that depends greatly on extraction, manufacturing and transportation methods. To illustrate this, a comparison was made between the same anode for use in a North Sea wind farm, manufactured in either Brazil or Iceland, which clearly showed
the benefits to GWP from siting manufacturing in places with a higher proportion of renewables in the energy mix and reducing transportation distances.

Overall, the A3 anode, with higher aluminium content, showed
a slightly higher global warming potential than the A5 anode. However, the A5 anode, with higher zinc content, showed a higher toxicity. This demonstrates the need for professional judgement when making decisions about sustainable materials selection. However, adopting the use of an LCC on engineering projects provides a clear, efficient and traceable methodology for informing those judgements. Moreover, while environmental scientists are essential in creating LCC tools and datasets, making these tools available to materials and corrosion engineers would promote the incorporation of sustainability objectives into day-to-day project decisions.

A Pan-Industrial View of Material Sustainability & Material Stewardship Practices

Panel Discussion

One of my favourite parts of the conference was the discussion that took place after the presentations on material sustainability and stewardship practices across multiple industries. One insight that stuck with me was the observation that corrosion engineers and climate scientists are often faced with the same challenge. Whether putting forward the case for investment in climate change action or corrosion control, our message is “act now so that nothing will happen”. If our recommendations are not followed and corrosion damage/climate chaos ensues, then we may be able to turn around and point out where we think things went wrong. However, if our recommendations are followed and nothing happens, then people may quite reasonably ask whether we really need to invest all that money and make significant changes to commonly accepted practices just to maintain the status quo. In my own day-to-day work, I am quite often one of a handful of materials and corrosion engineers on a project with around 50 structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, safety engineers and project managers. In that kind of environment, I’ve had to become multilingual, speaking the language of fundamental materials and corrosion science, broader engineering concepts, risk assessment and financial impact.

To that end, the ICorr Young Engineers Programme was a masterclass in effective communication. I would recommend that any early-career engineer participate in the programme if only for the experience of presenting your analysis of an engineering problem and your proposed solution as you would to a client, manager or research director.

Corrosion Engineers Just Do Nothing

I’d like to thank the Institute of Corrosion and my excellent mentor, Ali Morshed, for the opportunity to participate in the Young Engineers Programme and to attend the AMPP conference in Nashville. And, as the conference was in Music City, I’d like
to leave you with a quote Photo: YEP 2024 Winners celebrating in from one of my favourite Nashville for AMPP25. bands, the Talking Heads. If corrosion engineering is all about working hard to make sure that nothing happens, then “it’s hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting.

References

1.Author(s), LCC Anodes Paper (placeholder), AMPP Annual Conference + Expo 2025, Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP), 2025.

2. A Gathorne-Hardy, Newcomer’s Guide to Life Cycle Assessment –Baselines and Boundaries, RGTW Working Paper No.

3, 2015. 3. ISO 9351:2025 – Galvanic Anodes for Cathodic Protection in Seawater and Saline Sediments, 1st edition, International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2025.

4. S Ebeling et al., “Investigation of Potential Metal Emissions from Galvanic Anodes in Offshore Wind Farms into North Sea Sediments”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 194, 2023.

5. ANEMOI Project, Interreg North Sea Programme, available at:
https://www.interregnorthsea.eu/anemoi/ (accessed 5 June 2025).