In tests where corrosion behaviour has been accelerated, corrosion resistance showed to be at least four times as effective for the same coating thickness as products galvanized with zinc alone. The trade name for this state of the art product, manufactured at Corus in IJmuiden in the Netherlands, is MagiZinc®.

MagiZinc provides significant savings for customers in total costs for all applications that currently use thin hot-dip galvanised steel with a zinc coating of 275 g/m2. The great improvements in corrosion performance made possible with MagiZinc can be used in for example the construction industry. Applications are, amongst others, channels for ventilation systems and cable trays in large commercial and residential buildings. MagiZinc can also be applied in the automotive sector.

The new product MagiZinc consists predominantly of zinc, with additions of both magnesium and aluminium. Because of the better corrosion protection of MagiZinc as compared with conventional zinc coatings, this offers the opportunity to reduce the metallic coating weight while still improving the properties of the material. This makes thinner and lighter coating layers possible resulting in up to 4% more m2 per tonne material for the end customers. First aim will be to replace products with a 275 g/m2 zinc coating with a MagiZinc coating of 140 g/m2. Even thinner coating layers are under development.

After lab-scale and pilot line trials by Corus’ R&D department, Corus went on to optimise the coating in a number of production trials in cooperation with development partner Salzgitter AG. In conjunction with this, material application trials - including forming and joining - were carried out at selected customers with good results.

Extra and more detailed information concerning current product range and price can be obtained at www.productrange.nl

Corus Strip Products IJmuiden (The Netherlands) is one of the largest and most efficient integrated steelmaking facilities in Europe, producing about 7.5 million tonnes of high quality strip and coated steel products for the automotive, construction and packaging sectors.

Corus is Europe's second largest steel producer with annual revenues of over £11 billion (€ 14 billion) and a crude steel production of about 20 million tonnes. With main steelmaking operations primarily in the UK and the Netherlands, Corus provides innovative solutions to the construction, automotive, packaging, mechanical engineering and other markets worldwide. Corus is a subsidiary of Tata Steel, the world's sixth largest and second most global steel producer. With a combined presence in nearly 50 countries, Tata Steel including Corus has over 82,000 employees across five continents.

Media enquiries:

Annanya Sarin
Corporate Relations
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7717 4532

Dick Schiethart
Corus, IJmuiden, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0)251 492111

Jochem Niermeijer
Commercial enquiries
Tel: +31 (0)2514 97414