Italy-based steel fabricator Cital has made a decisive move towards more economical liquid storage tanks. It has chosen Outokumpu’s proprietary lean duplex grade LDX 2101® for 20 new fermentation tanks to be built for the UK bio ethanol producer Vivergo Fuels Ltd. Due to the material weight reduction that LDX 2101® allows compared to the traditional material in this application, austenitic 1.4301/1.4307, Cital managed to cut their material use by more than 15%. At the time when Cital made the grade selection, a sharp drop in the nickel price had made 1.4301/1.4307 competitive against LDX 2101® in absolute terms. LDX 2101® contains only 1.5% nickel, which is an advantage at times of high nickel prices. However, Cital found after careful calculations that LDX 2101® was the better material for them. The weight reduction allowed by LDX 2101® comes from the high mechanical strength of duplex stainless steel close to 90% higher than that of austenitic grades.
