Stainless Steel 316L- Yes or NO?

[Hightower33]

Thought I would open this controversey again and see what the totals are - for and against.

I am planning to use building a chiller.

316L is very high grade. Some say it rusts eventually, some say it dont.

Does it leach anything into the water?

Can we have definitive answers to this debate?

 

[tdmichel]

Im new to the hobby of sw, but I am a factory millwright and we use 316 stainless al over the plant, for many of are storage tanks, and since its a food grade product we make evrything needs to be in the up n up. The produst we make is very acidic and my guess would be it would do much more damage to the stainless then salt water. And we use it, so my guess it would be ok to use stainless.

 

[PrangeWay]

Should be Okay

Should be Okay

You should be good to go.

The last time we spec'd 316L for anything was a custom made centrifugal pump (gorman rupp actually) and piping for a chemical plant, chemical sewer, where we where moving 170 degree F chlorine/water mix. Saltwater doens't have anything on that.

 

[Hightower33]

2-0 for pro stainless

 

[Remicade]

3-0 for SS

I work in a big bio pharm company and our entire process of piping, tanks and everything else is made from 316 SS.
it might need de roughing every once in a while but that is it. the only way it rusts is if you put a deep scratch in it from other metals and use a ton of bleach or acids/caustics on it. so if you keep it good, it will last.
SS is non reactive to store it in anything. our process makes and injectable drug called Remicade so if it is safe to store a injectable, then its good enough for anything..

 

[Karl K]

Good news.....