To the naked eye it looks just like paint, but to in­dus­tri­al plant own­ers, pipeline main­te­nance crews and tank farm own­ers, it's an ef­fec­tive hedge against cor­ro­sion and the high cost of op­er­at­ing in trop­i­cal weath­er. The Zinc based Zin­ga met­al coat­ing and pro­tec­tion is more than just paint, its an an­ti cor­ro­sion sys­tem that ac­tu­al­ly merges with the met­al to pro­tect it deep down un­der the met­al sur­face to pro­vide pro­tec­tion from the weath­er and harsh chem­i­cal con­di­tions, says Robert Char­bonne, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the Ch­aguara­mas-based REDS Caribbean, a fran­chisee for the new met­al pro­tec­tion prod­uct in Trinidad and To­ba­go. "It can be ap­plied as eas­i­ly as paint, but it quick­ly cre­ates a chem­i­cal bond with the met­al to form a tough an­ti-cor­ro­sive bar­ri­er that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly add years to the life of met­al sur­faces fac­ing harsh weath­er, chem­i­cals and en­vi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tions that paint sim­ply can­not work or is too ex­pen­sive or im­prac­ti­cal to main­tain over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od," he added.

Zin­ga can be de­scribed as a one com­po­nent an­ti cor­ro­sion zinc coat­ing sys­tem, which can be best com­pared to Hot Dip Gal­va­niz­ing (HDG). Gal­va­nized steel is wide­ly used in ap­pli­ca­tions where rust re­sis­tance is need­ed and Zin­ga is the ide­al prod­uct to im­pede the nev­er-end­ing progress of cor­ro­sion. Even though Zin­ga con­tains 96% zinc by weight, it con­tains a pu­ri­ty lev­el of 99.995 per­cent when ap­plied. What is of para­mount im­por­tance to Zin­ga is that it is en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, with no haz­ardous by-prod­ucts. In ad­di­tion, the prod­uct can be ap­plied to slight­ly damp sur­faces or in ex­treme tem­per­a­tures (hot or cold), and Zin­ga can still be ac­tive in less than an hour. "The strength of the prod­uct re­mains un­chal­lenged as it can with­stand re­peat­ed cycli­cal vi­bra­tion and is flex­i­ble enough to al­low Zin­gan­ised sheet to be forced in­to shape af­ter it has been coat­ed. Most im­por­tant­ly, Zin­ga has an un­lim­it­ed pot life and un­lim­it­ed shelf life.

"With ma­jor projects sched­uled for Trinidad's en­er­gy sec­tor, met­al pro­tec­tion in harsh con­di­tions is ex­pect­ed to be a ma­jor is­sue for oil ex­plo­rations and pe­tro­le­um trans­mis­sion firms. They now have a high­er stan­dard for pro­tect­ing their as­sets over the long term.," he added.

This prod­uct is a key en­abler for projects such as the de­vel­op­ment of the cross-coun­try oil and gas trans­mis­sion pipeline net­work be­ing planned for Trinidad's petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try. This project will see the met­als ex­posed to harsh chem­i­cals at the well heads, face harsh sea blast and salt wa­ter as it trav­els un­der wa­ter, it will en­dure the di­rect trop­i­cal sun­shine as well as the hu­mid­i­ty and thick veg­e­ta­tion as it makes its way through the land based right-of-way to­wards the oil and gas pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ties on the west­ern side of the is­land. Zin­ga dries in 15 min­utes and con­tains a min­i­mum of 96% zinc when dry.

Zin­ga can pro­tect longer than hot-dip gal­va­niz­ing at the same cov­er­age per square foot. It of­fers the same ad­van­tages but, with­out the ap­pli­ca­tion and over­coat­ing prob­lems that you can some­times get with paint. Zin­ga can pro­vide as much as thir­ty (30) years of cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion and the prod­uct has an un­lim­it­ed shelf life. Zin­ga was orig­i­nal­ly in­vent­ed in Ghent Uni­ver­si­ty, Bel­gium, in the 1970's and has since been used in a wide va­ri­ety of projects through­out the world. Zin­ga is a unique form of cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion be­cause it pro­vides both Ac­tive and Pas­sive pro­tec­tion in a form that's as easy to ap­ply as a paint... But Zin­ga is not a paint. It is an ac­tive zinc per­for­mance coat­ing, which works in con­junc­tion with the met­al be­neath where­as paints are on­ly pas­sive bar­ri­ers. Re­gard­less of how thick paints are ap­plied, they re­main as bar­ri­ers. Once they are breached cor­ro­sion sets in im­me­di­ate­ly.

De­spite this sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence Zin­ga is still of­ten mis­tak­en for a paint sim­ply be­cause it's liq­uid and comes in a tin. But there are oth­er more sub­tle dif­fer­ences. For ex­am­ple it does not "skin over" in the tin be­cause Zin­ga has an un­lim­it­ed pot-life and it doesn't go "tacky" like a paint. The prod­uct is a film gal­va­niz­ing sys­tem com­pris­ing pre­cise­ly milled zinc par­ti­cles sus­pend­ed in a unique aro­mat­ic liq­uid filled base. "Zin­ga will bond to any pre­pared steel sub­strate to form a fin­ished sur­face lay­er of 96 per­cent zinc. It of­fers all the ad­van­tages of hot dip gal­va­niz­ing and ther­mal zinc spray, and it can be ap­plied on site. The prod­uct has been ap­proved to NOR­SOK Stan­dard M-501 Rev 5, to meet the ex­act­ing de­mands of the oil and gas in­dus­try.