Swedish Corrosion Institute -- SCI (Sweden)

The Swedish Corrosion Institute (SCI) was founded in 1965 by industry and government for the purpose of combating corrosion in Sweden. Since 1999 the Swedish Corrosion Institute has been a limited non-profit company. The shareholders are the Swedish governmental agency IRECO (40%) and an association of industrial companies (60%).The main duties of the Institute are to carry out research and development, to perform consultancy work including an advisory service and to spread knowledge through information and education. Many leading corrosion specialists from Sweden and other countries are associated with the Institute via committees and working groups. At present the staff consists of 50 people, two thirds of them directly involved in R&D work. The turnover of the Institute is about 5 MEuro/year.

Research in the field of atmospheric corrosion has a well established tradition in SCI: the first field exposures started in 1938 at test sites which today belong to the Institute. Research is performed both on test sites and in the laboratories using climate chambers and advanced surface analytical and electrochemical techniques. Numerous laboratory and field projects have been carried out, several of them in international co-operation within UN ECE, the Nordic Council of Ministers, EU DG Research, Eureka, OECD, and the World Bank. A major interest is the evaluation of effects of acidifying air pollutants on different materials and objects of cultural heritage in different parts of the world, including mapping of areas with high risk of corrosion and assessment of cost of damage in the multi-pollutant situation.