Metal Pickling

Pickling is a process used to clean metal surfaces, like ferrous metals, copper, precious metals, and aluminum alloys, by removing impurities such as stains, rust, or scale. A solution called pickle liquor, which usually contains acid, is used for this purpose. It is commonly employed to clean or descale steel in various steelmaking processes.

GT is a leader in the stainless steel pickling industry, thanks to our GT FLON grade, which allows us to handle mixed acid media (Nitric acid + Hydrofluoric acid) with high reliability. Traditional graphite impregnated with phenolic resin or superficial PTFE impregnation has a limited lifetime, especially at high temperatures. Different mixed acid compositions exist based on the type of metals being cleaned, like sulfonitric acid, phosphonitric acid, phosphoric acid, and sulfuric acid, all of which can corrode traditional graphite.

GT, with its GT FLON grade, can handle such corrosive media for most pickling applications. Cheap and unreliable solutions from other suppliers have damaged graphite heat exchangers for carbon steel pickling over the years. GT has introduced features to prevent these recurrent failures, claiming to have the most reliable equipment for pickling, offering the highest return on investment (ROI) on the market, including metallic solutions like Tantalum.