China Certifies POSCO’s PosMAC Corrosion Resistant Steel

Korea Bizwire reported that South Korea’s leading steelmaker POSCO’s corrosion-resistant Posco Magnesium Alloy Coating, PosMAC, is set to gain wider access in the Chinese market. PosMAC is a ternary alloy that is created by coating cold rolled or hot rolled steeled plates with three alloys zinc, magnesium and aluminum. The China Engineering Construction Standardized Association recently certified the ternary alloy coated steel product with high corrosion resistance as a suitable material that can be used for the production of stabilizers in the Chinese construction industry projects from December 2021.

Until now, Hot Dipped Galvanized Steel Sheets have been mainly used as stabilizer materials, but demand for alternative materials has increased due to increased longevity of buildings, demand for improved corrosion resistance, and environmental issues. However, Chinese architectural certification standards did not include the magnesium-aluminum-zinc alloy coated steel sheet, so there was a limitation to use this as the stabilizer material. However, POSCO succeeded in reflecting its PosMac products into the certification standard after two years of efforts, including technical exchanges with Chinese related agencies and participating in online and offline public hearings from 2019.

A stabilizer is a steel buttress that prevents pipes and other equipment within building structures from dislocation during earthquakes. Since Sichuan earthquake in 2008, Chinese government mandated the application of stabilizers to buildings, and currently stabilizers have been applying to all buildings since 2019.