THE PROBLEM

The paint kitchen bund was leaking solvent spills on the walkway below, presenting a significant risk to our clients personnel. Previous attempts to seal the bund had proved unsuccessful. Any new bund lining would have to be chemically resistant to the paints and solvents stored within the bund.

SOLUTION

The requirement for a fluid tight sealing solution, yet combined with chemical resistance meant that there was only one solution – Corrolastic PTU.

The extreme contamination from years of spilt paint first had to be removed. We undertook this using mechanical scrapers, containing the paint contamination for disposal as hazardous waste.

Final contamination and preparation of the concrete base was undertaken using vacuum controlled diamond grinders. During preparation some steel supports where exposed in the floor. These were prepared to ST2 as per ISO 8501-1 and treated using Corroless EPF rust stabilising epoxy primer to prevent further corrosion.

To ensure a pin hole free bund lining the concrete was double primer using an oil tolerant epoxy primer. The first coat was applied as a ‘scratch’ coat, incorporating fine quartz sand to fill imperfections in the slab.

Creating a seamless bund lining

All penetrations and the perimeter was sealed using a polyurethane jointing compound to ensure a seamless bund lining.

Once satisfied with the preparation and priming works Corrolastic PTU was applied to a thickness of 3mm by method of heated plural component spray unit. The benefit of this material as a bund lining is that it offers excellent flexibility and elongation properties, meaning that movement in the structure is accommodated without cracking and splitting whilst also offering outstanding resistance to hydrocarbons such as solvents, fuels and oils. These two characteristics are normally mutually exclusive.

As part of  our standard bund lining quality assurance the new lining was tested for pin holing using a DC holiday spark tester, and where necessary repairs made.

The works were completed in 4 days, with two shifts to enable the works to be completed within the clients shutdown.

The fast return to service time of Corrolastic PTU meant that the bund could be back in service within 24 hours from completion.