Studying the Effects of Biomolecules on Steel Corrosion

There is growing demand for the replacement of petroleum feedstocks with biofeedstocks in the production of fuels. Biofeedstocks are renewable organic materials including starches (such as corn), oils (such as soybean oil), and animal fats. Switching to these biofeedstocks would have significant economic, environmental, and geopolitical benefits; but there are still challenges that need to be overcome to increase our usage of these feedstocks. One of the challenges is that we do not fully understand how these different molecules may corrode and degrade the refinery infrastructure. Understanding how these biomolecules affect the corrosion and degradation of the infrastructure is critical to preventing failures, and the resulting environmental or health hazards.

A team of researchers at the Illinois Applied Research Institute (ARI) are teaming with researchers in the Material Science and Engineering Department (MatSE) and BP to study the effects of the biomolecules on the corrosion of steel. This project is funded through the bp International Centre for Advanced Materials (bp-ICAM). bp-ICAM is a partnership between bp and several academic institutions including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Illinois), the University of Manchester, Imperial College, and the University of Cambridge to enable the application of advanced materials for the transition to net zero.

In this project, we are studying the chemical and structural evolutions of both the liquid biofeedstocks and the steel with exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. This work has resulted in a recent publication in Corrosion Science titled “Biofeedstock-Induced Metal Corrosion: Reactions between Carbon Steel and Triacylglycerol-based Solutions at Elevated Temperature” by lead author Dr. Dan Krogstad (ARI) and his student, first author Dr. Deborah Liu (a recently graduated PhD student). This paper describes the very early stages of the corrosion process to understand how the biomolecules break down in solution and how the first stages of oxide forms on steel. In our future work, we will study the mechanisms that cause the continued corrosion of the metal over long timeframes. These results will allow bp and other refiners to design and maintain refineries that can safely and efficiently handle larger quantities of renewable feedstocks, reducing our reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels.

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This research is in collaboration with the research groups of Professor Jessica Krogstad and Professor Qian Chen in the MatSE department as well as with our bp mentors Dr. Siddesh Shevade, Dr. Tom Eason, Dr. John Shabaker, and Dr. Eric Doskocil. The students and postdoctoral associates that have worked on the project are: Dr. Krogstad group - Dr. Deborah Liu, Nathan Levandovsky; Prof. Krogstad group – Samyukta Shrivastav, Dr. Soheil Daraydel; Prof. Chen group – Dr. Hyosung An, Dr. Zhiheng Lyu, and Jiahui Li. This research made use of the facilities in ARI and the Materials Research Laboratory at Illinois.