Mild steel solvent recovery towers packed with charcoal sometimes show exceptionally high rates of corrosion of areas of steel in physical contact with the charcoal. The corrosion may be increased in the presence of chlorinated solvents. The attack results from galvanic interaction between charcoal and steel, the function of the chlorinated solvent being to provide electrolyte by hydrolysis. Physical separation of the steel and charcoal interrupts the galvanic corrosion and reduces the rate of attack in a laboratory unit to normal levels which may be one-fiftieth of the original.
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