Investigation on high temperature corrosion of water-cooled wall tubes at a 300 MW boiler

Because of the updated requirement on ultra-low NOx emission (<50 mg/Nm³), most of Chinese coal-fired boilers have to be operated at a low NOx combustion mode. However, for high-sulfur coal, water-cooled wall tubes probably suffer severe corrosion in such a strong reduction atmosphere. This work aims to investigate the high temperature corrosion behavior of water-cooled wall tubes inside a 300 MW boiler unit. A short length of corroded water-cooled wall tube was cut down and was analyzed by various characterization methods to further figure out the detailed corrosion mechanism. The typical corrosion products can be distinguished by blue, black and pale-green. Results showed that blue and black color products were mainly consisted of iron sulfides and iron oxides while the pale-green ones were identified as zinc sulfide. Along the radial direction, a layered structure of corrosion products can be observed. The formation of inner layer resulted from the reaction between iron oxide and hydrogen sulfide. The sulfur element displays a gradual increase trend while the Fe element gives out an opposite trend along the radially outward direction. The intermediate layer comes from the fly ash deposition and the outer layer is formed via condensation and deposition of ferrous sulfide gas on the water-cooled wall. The corrosion in this power plant is typical sulfide type for large amounts of Fe and S element were found in the corrosion products.