Effect of flue gas composition on deposit induced high temperature corrosion under laboratory conditions mimicking biomass firing. Part I: Exposures in oxidizing and chlorinating atmospheres

In biomass fired power plants, deposition of alkali chlorides on superheaters, aswell as the presence of corrosive flue gas species, give rise to fast corrosion ofsuperheaters. In order to understand the corrosion mechanism under thiscomplex condition, the influence of the flue gas composition on hightemperature corrosion of an austenitic superheater material under laboratoryconditions mimicking biomass firing is investigated in this work. Exposuresinvolving deposit (KCl)-coated and deposit-free austenitic stainless steel (TP347H FG) samples were conducted isothermally at 560 8C for 72 h, under bothoxidizing and oxidizing-chlorinating atmospheres, and the resulting corrosionproducts were comprehensively studied with scanning electron microscopy(SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD)techniques. The results show that deposit-free samples suffer grain boundaryattack only in an oxidizing-chlorinating atmosphere, otherwise corrosionresults in formation of a duplex oxide. Corrosion attack on deposit-coatedsamples was higher than on deposit-free samples irrespective of the gaseousatmosphere. Specifically, severe volatilization of alloying elements occurred ondeposit-coated samples under oxidizing-chlorinating atmosphere due toenhanced impact of KCl and HCl.