Patents
The invention provides an anode backfill based on ion conducting paste for cathodic protection of iron and steel structures and pipelines buried under the soil. Cathodic protection involves providing current to the metallic structure with sufficient magnitude to polarize all the cathodic areas up to the open circuit potential of the anodic areas. In cathodic protection, a special chemical backfill is often used to surround galvanic anodes placed in a soil environment to absorb and retain the moisture necessary for ionic conduction. Accordingly, in the invention, an efficient anode backfill system based on an ion conducting paste has been developed and this system is able to boost the performance of sacrificial as well as impressed current anodes, both in terms of current flow and shift in polarized potential. The newly developed system does not need any moisture for its function and it is able to perform effectively even in a soil medium of very high electrical resistivity.