Caustic/Potassium Permanganate Descaling

Potassium Permanganate is a strong oxidizing agent that can be used to oxidize scale to allow reducing-type acids to pickle more effectively as well as a pretreatment method to overcome problems of heat scale and smut during pickling. It also helps with stainless and alloy steels so that they can be pickled in hydrochloric or sulfuric acids instead of nitric/hydrofluoric acids. It can eliminate the need for molten salt treatment. Typical solutions of 80 g/l of caustic and 80 g/l of potassium permanganate at about 80°C are used.