SCAPAC

The prevention of the corrosion of alloys exposed to severe and complex conditions is a great challenge since decades. The impacts on safety, reliability, process intensification and environment can be huge. Today the demand on corrosion from industries is increasing. The French scientific community in the field of high temperature corrosion has identified a lack of people involved in this topic. This project recovers also an important target to preserve and develop competencies on high temperature corrosion under complex and severe environments, in France. The work proposed in this project is driven by energy savings and environmental concerns for two separate processes : Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) and Waste to Energy (WtE). Even if the operating conditions of those processes are very different, the scientific approaches and the solutions proposed to solve corrosion issues can be very similar. This project will focus on the selection and manufacturing of protection coatings, the understanding of corrosion mechanisms under complex and severe atmospheres and the evaluation of their performances under realistic industrial conditions. Metal dusting corrosion is commonly encountered in Steam Methane Reforming process. It is one of the most critical phenomenon for the production units. This type of corrosion has been studied for many years but the mechanisms are not well understood. Today, there is no standard available to evaluate the metal dusting resistance of an alloy or a coating and any extrapolation of results is hazardous. This lack of knowledge is a blocking point for the conception of more efficient production units. Efficiency increase is expected in term of equipment lifetime and/or process intensification. Today, process intensification is a key criterion to improve the efficiency of a unit. New alloys and coating formulations have been developed in the last years but quantitative data and performances evaluation are not available under steam methane reforming (SMR) operating conditions. The aims of this project are to define a protective coating for SMR process, develop the manufacturing process to apply this coating on complex pieces and quantify its corrosion performances. These findings will help in the conception of new corrosion resistant equipment. This project is also an opportunity to better understand and model metal dusting mechanisms, to adjust protection strategy. From the knowledge acquired in this research work, a draft standard for metal dusting performance evaluation could be established. Considering Energy from Waste, fireside corrosion is the main limiting factor to increase energy recovery efficiency. Fireside corrosion had been widely studied over the last decades and mechanisms are well documented. Consequently first standards on corrosion test method under ash deposit start to be discussed within International Standard Organisation (ISO). Nevertheless the test method device and the know-how on use of this future standard have to be developed in France to be able to evaluate corrosion resistance of alloys and coatings. On the other hand, many materials and coatings have been developed in the last years but currently their performances in this severe environment are not sufficiently accurate to define suitable criteria for choice of solution or predict lifetime regarding to plant design and operating conditions. The aims of this project are: to develop specific coating formulations for heat exchangers in high efficiency WtE facilities, and evaluate the best application technology to guarantee corrosion performances. This project will also contribute to develop a quantitative evaluation of corrosion performances based on adapted corrosion test and to define accurate criteria for choice of materials. This will help to make decision on operating higher steam parameters plant, increase availability of the facilities and adapt our protection and maintenance strategy, resulting in economic savings.