This series of articles is intended to highlight industry-wide engineering experience, guidance and focused advice to practising technologists. It is written by ICorr Fellows who have made significant contributions to the field of corrosion management.
1824 and All That – A Celebration of The Bicentenaries of CP and PC
Paul Lambert, Head of Materials and Corrosion Technology at Mottmac
On January 22, 1824, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London received a paper entitled ‘On the corrosion of copper sheeting by sea water, and on methods of preventing this effect, and on their application to ships of war and other ships’. The author was Sir Humphry Davy, and it describes a study with his colleague Michael Faraday into what we now know as cathodic protection, which celebrates its 200-year anniversary in 2024. It was many years later before the true value of cathodic protection was recognised for the protection of buried and submerged steel structures. It was championed by the formation of the Texas-based Mid-Continent Cathodic Protection Association in 1938, which by 1943 had evolved into the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (now AMPP) in the USA.
But that is only half the tale. On October 21st 1824, a bricklayer in Leeds patented a new formulation of hydraulic binder for mortar and concrete which he called Portland cement due to its similarity to the popular structural stone, especially when mixed with beach sand. Portland cement eventually dominated the manufacture of all concrete worldwide.
200 years on, the long-term durability limitations of Portland cement concrete are regularly made good by the application of cathodic protection, making 2024 a very important year for those involved in reinforced concrete and its remediation.
Happy 200th birthday to Cathodic Protection and Portland Cement.
Sir Humphry Davy of Penzance (1778 – 1829).
Photo courtesy of Pen with Local History Group
https://corrosion-doctors.org/Corrosion-History/CP-History.htm
