South Korean steel maker, POSCO, has developed a super corrosion resistant stainless steel product that can be used to make steam condensers especially for nuclear power plants.
POSCO, which is the world’s fourth largest steel maker that has locations across North and South America, has created the new CRA to be used to make special pipes for reactors through which seawater flows to cool hot steam generated from the nuclear reactor. As a result, this steam turns turbines that produce electric power. The company has stated that the material, which was developed in cooperation with a research team led by professor Park Yong-soo at Yonsei University, marks the first time that a stainless steel product can be used in South Korea to build a turbine condenser. In the past, the country has imported CRAs from Europe and Japan to meet its nuclear power needs.
The stainless steel took two years to develop. Besides its use in nuclear power plants, the material can be used in facilities designed to remove sulfur from fossil fuel-fired thermal power plants and in reverse osmosis systems of large desalination plants.