The Styrian (Austrian) start-up MPC² wants to solve a major problem in the materials industry.

Corrosion is one of the greatest enemies of materials. Almost all metals suffer from what we usually know as rust in structural steel. In industry, production facilities must therefore be regularly checked for corrosion damage. This is very time-consuming and costly.
Conventional methods for determining the intergranular corrosion resistance of a material currently take between 2 and 6 weeks, depending on the method chosen.

A development from Styria is intended to accelerate this. Behind it is the corrosion scientist Manuel Prohaska, who founded the company MPC² together with his wife Simone Prohaska. The company specializes in services in the field of corrosion testing.

The company is supported by the development bank Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws) , among others. There they are part of the Seed-financing – Deep Tech module. In this context, entrepreneurial start-up and scale-up projects based on applied research and development are supported, which are brought to commercial implementation through the development of pre-series products, products and services.

Corrosion Ray
MPC² has developed the Corrosion Ray . This portable testing device makes it possible to examine the corrosion resistance of components in general, but especially of weld seams, directly on the component – faster, more precisely and in a more environmentally friendly way than ever before.

Prohaska, who originally comes from high-pressure technology and worked there as managing director for several years, was often concerned with the problem that weld seams cannot be tested for corrosion resistance directly on site. In the event of manufacturing and/or raw material defects, project business regularly leads to major project delays and thus high penalty demands from customers. The reason for this is that error analysis and elimination take many weeks or even months due to the long testing time of conventional methods, and samples also have to be taken from the component to be tested. Aside from their long duration, conventional methods have the disadvantage that they are very energy-intensive and require large quantities of chemicals. The Corrosion Ray, on the other hand, not only reduces the duration, but also the energy and chemical consumption by over 90 percent .
The Corrosion Ray is based on the DL-EPR method (Double Loop Electrochemical Potentiokinetic Reactivation). Put simply, electrical voltage is applied to the material to be tested and the material behavior is measured in a specific test solution. “The DL-EPR method is an electrochemical test method that is able to make visible even microscopically small zones in steel and nickel-based materials in which the corrosion resistance is reduced due to local element depletion – especially chromium and molybdenum,” explains Prohaska.

Here, the small cube in the foreground is the actual Corrosion Ray, i.e. the measuring cell. The rest is the manual movement, pressing and positioning unit for measuring on the outside surfaces of pipes. Prohaska explains that there is currently nothing like this on the market because the DLP-EPR method is currently mainly a scientific rather than an industrial testing method . The somewhat more complex interpretation of measurement results compared to conventional methods also makes industrial acceptance of this method difficult.

“Apart from the fact that no mobile testing device has been available for this method to date, the need to work with highly corrosive testing solutions on site at the customer’s site is a particular challenge in bringing our product to market,” says Prohaska. “However, we are trying to solve this problem with ‘plug-and-play’ systems that reliably prevent chemicals from escaping,” explains the company boss.

The DL-EPR method is basically standardized, but is only described in detail for a single material. Functional process parameters have already been defined for around 10 industrially relevant, different materials, which can be applied both in the laboratory or on site using the Corrosion Ray.

“The proof of concept is ready,” Prohaska tells futurezone. “In the next few days we will receive the first version of a manual traversing unit for measuring the outside of pipes and are close to completing a traversing and positioning unit for measuring the inside of pipes,” says the founder.
“Next, the filling or injection of the test solution into the Corrosion Ray will be simplified or partially automated and the product portfolio will be supplemented with portable metallography solutions. From Q3 2025 we want to start appearing more actively on the market,” explains Prohaska.

Potential customers
“So far we have only worked with customers with whom we have had long-standing, personal contact within the framework of “We worked together on feasibility projects,” says Prohaska. Customers for the Corrosion Ray are, on the one hand, apparatus and plant manufacturers in the European environment, but also globally active operators of chemical and petrochemical plants and their Licensor. According to Prohaska, companies in the fertilizer industry are particularly likely, as very corrosive production processes prevail there.
Urea, for example, is the most important nitrogen fertilizer and is used, among other things, in agriculture or for cosmetics and skin care products. On average, around 180 million tons of urea are produced every year; the price for one ton of urea is currently just over USD 300. Prohaska itself also has a history in this industry worked there, which is why he has a lot of contacts there.

This article was created as part of a cooperation between futurezone and Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws).