Case Study: "My Anode is Foaming!"

Chemistry is often a dramatic process.  Viewed at the right time in its life cycle, an anode may look quite a bit different from what you'd expect.  

Each alloy has it's own quirks and it's important to factor in the water environment.  We don't like to assume anything here.  When a customer brings something to our attention, we take it seriously and do everything we can to confidently understand and explain it.  So we ask questions, we gather information, and we work from there.  The marine world is full of variables and we'll never handwave away a customer's concerns.

This photo shows a Diver's Plate at a particularly interesting point.  The word the customer used was "foaming", which, while not exactly accurate, is still a great way to describe the look of this anode.  It came as a real shock to our customer.

Despite the appearance, however, this was an easy one.  Mil-Spec aluminum makes for very active anodes.  The swirling, wavy, almost psychedelic pattern here is a byproduct of the corrosion process.  It's a mixture of aluminum hydroxide and aluminum carbonate.  In the water, it softens up very quickly and washes off.

Aluminum anodes are sometimes referred to as "self-cleaning".  We don't have an "after" photo to show here, but this anode would have splashed and stayed open and active and useful, right up until it corroded enough to need replacing.