The biggest challenge that corrosion presents is how to minimize or eliminate the damage that corrosion can cause to metals. If the weakness in a metal, caused by corrosion is undetected the metal will weaken and can cause significant injury or even death if the structure it supports collapses or breaks down. The greatest challenge is how to prevent corrosion from taking place right from the start. Research is constantly underway in this area. There are two main steps that researchers undertake when investigating corrosion. The first is to understand how the corrosion is taking place and secondly what can be done to prevent this deterioration. For example the green patina on copper roofs forms a protective coating and guards against further corrosion. Other techniques involve adding different protective coatings to the metal or changing the environment around the metal. Adding chemicals such as paint will slow down the rate of atmospheric corrosion. Plastic, ceramic, rubbers and electroplating can all be used as electroplating. Adding metal alloys such as aluminium to brass and zinc to steel will increase the materials corrosion resistance. The chemical process industry spends a considerable amount of time and money investigating corrosion prevention. It must protect the equipment it uses from atmospheric corrosion. They will use paints to coat the equipment to avoid corrosion. Strict environmental laws limit the type of paints that can be used to ensure the environment is safe from toxic pollutants. Other coatings such as vinyl, chlorinated rubbers and cold tar are considered toxic and are no longer permitted. With government rules and regulations increasing year after year this has increased the research required to develop coatings for the prevention of corrosion.
Research in this field continues to increase because the negative effects of corrosion are costly and harmful if not controlled. Because protecting the environment is very important, new rules limit the type of coatings that can be used. This will force researchers to come up with environmentally friendly coatings for all sorts of applications. Epoxies, polyurethanes, zinc silicates and water based acrylics are all areas where researchers continue to investigate how these coatings can better reduced or eliminate corrosion.