Mercury corrosion in chemical industry

Abstract

The chemical industry in our country and also around the world is part of the high priority industries. Because of this it is very important that for the designing, operating and maintaining of the components the most recent information are used for the decision making. It is essential to be aware of the potential risks and failure mechanisms. The risks caused by mercury should be taken into account especially in the chemical industry where even a small failure can cause great catastrophes. In the article the dangers in the chemical industries caused by mercury are going to be introduced, furthermore with the help of experiments the mercury caused damages for the basic material of the equipment is going to be demonstrated. Finally a thermal calculation is presented, and with the help of it an approximate value can be given which would show that in case of the shutdown of a low-temperature operating heat exchanger the present of mercury after how long time will cause problem.