The Centro de Estudios de Corrosion “Oladis Troconis de Rincón” corrosion study center at the University of Zulia (Maracaibo, Venezuela) recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Founded 40 years ago in a very small room at the university, the first research projects performed focused on solving problems in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries, reducing the number of failures, and improving the maintenance of facilities. Both basic and applied research were performed.
Ten years later, the laboratory became a center, and by the mid-1990s, a master's degree program in corrosion was created—the only degree of that type in South America at the time. In 2001, the school named the center after Oladis Troconis de Rincón to honor her high impact on education, impactful research, and service to the university.
With a mission to contribute to the technical, scientific, and engineering horizons of corrosion, the center now has four generations of professors, including 14 professors and two technicians.
Its infrastructure is comprised of five principal laboratories: corrosion in reinforced concrete, microbiologically influenced corrosion, atmospheric corrosion, organic/inorganic coatings, and electrochemistry. The center also has a characterization lab with its own scanning electron microscope
Alumni of the center are professionally involved in the corrosion industry in Venezuela as well as other parts of the world, including the United States, Canada, Chile, Peru, Spain, Mexico, The Netherlands, and Australia.
Source: University of Zulia, www.luz.edu.ve.