In biomass boilers, corrosion is a prevalent concern that arises at high temperatures. This is mainly because the fuels consumed in these boilers have a high alkali, chlorine, and other molten salt content that has occasionally led to material depletion, leaks, and unforeseen plant shutdowns. Applying protective coatings using thermal spray techniques is a practical answer to this issue. The current work focused on applying powders of Inconel 625 and Inconel 718 to boiler steel using a high-velocity oxy-fuel spraying method. The samples after coating deposition were subjected to the conditions of a biomass-fired boiler for 15 cycles to study the performance of the coatings in a real environment. The decrease of thickness over time was used to evaluate the erosion-corrosion process. Various characterization techniques were used to examine the as-sprayed and eroded-corroded specimens. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was utilized to analyze the phases, while the surface characteristics of powders, coatings, and samples exposed to erosion-corrosion were investigated through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). When exposed to the actual boiler environment, the findings showed that Inconel 625-coated steel performed better than Inconel 718-coated steel.

Erosion-corrosion is a severe problem observed in the coal fired thermal power plant boilers which lead to premature failure of boiler tubes. Thermal spray coatings have been applied successfully to check the erosion-corrosion of boiler tubes. In the present research work NiCrTiCRe coating powders were successfully deposited on T22 boiler steel by two different coating processes i.e. high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) and cold spray process. The performance of the coatings in actual power plant boiler were investigated and compared. The uncoated and coated T22 boiler steels were subjected the superheater zone of the coal fired boiler for a total of 15 consequent cycles. The thickness loss data and weight change analysis were used to establish kinetics of the erosion-corrosion. X-ray diffraction, surface field emission scanning electron microscope/energy dispersive spectroscopy (FE-SEM/EDS) techniques were used in the present work for the analysis. The results of thickness loss data indicated that the cold sprayed coating performed better in thermal power plant boiler environment.

Different surface protection technologies were investigated in a waste-wood fired fluidized bed boiler. This biomass fuel environment is more aggressive than those firing virgin wood due to the elevated presence of sodium, potassium, lead, and zinc, leading to the deposit of alkali metal chlorides in conjunction with ash on boiler tube surfaces. As laboratory tests are seldom representative of the complex firing, chemistry, temperature, and local heat flux encountered in actual operating conditions, five different commercial, near commercial, and development coatings were applied to a 1 m length of plain carbon steel tubing used in the furnace walls. The coatings were fully characterized and measured prior to installation and after exposure. Iron and nickel-based weld overlays, two high velocity thermal spray coatings, and a laser-clad nanosteel coating were tested. After exposure, the tube was extracted from the boiler and corrosion scales and material losses were evaluated in comparison to unprotected tube material.

In the current work a nano-crystalline Ni-20Cr coating was developed on a boiler tube material by cold-spray process. The coating powder was synthesized in-house by mechanical milling using a planetary ball mill. The average crystallite size of the developed powder was calculated to be 10 nm. The crystallite size of the coating was found to be 18 nm, and hence the retention of nano-crystallinity in the coating was established. However the grain growth occurred to some extent, which may be due to temperature rise involved in the cold spray process. A detailed TEM analysis of coated samples before and after exposure to high temperature oxidation was carried out.

Thermal spray materials used in power generation applications are required to function within a challenging array of requirements. The coatings must be applied over typically large surface areas cost effectively, the coating must be resistant to extreme erosion and/or corrosion, the coatings must function at high temperatures and, if possible, the thickness of the coatings should be readable with standard equipment such as an Elcometer gauge. Simultaneously meeting all these requirements and advancing the alloy technology is a daunting if not impossible task if done via experiments alone or through scientific intuition. However, the design of new alloys which must possess a variety of attributes simultaneously is well suited for big data techniques. The calculation of millions of alloys and advanced data mining techniques help to quickly identify the best alloy for the application. This paper details how this process was used to design Metco 8294, a proprietary alloy. Metco 8294 is unique in that it is a Fe-based alloy of high hardness, coating adhesion, and erosion resistance, and is readable in the as-sprayed condition and after high temperature exposure.

Boiler tube failure is the number one source of forced outages in all coal-fired and biomass-fired power generation plants. It is estimated that plants lose approximately 6% of their power generation annually, due to boiler tube leaks. The major causes for premature tube failure are excessive fireside boiler tube erosion and corrosion caused by impact, abrasive wear, oxidation and molten corrosion of low eutectic alloys.

Reducing CO 2 emissions from power generation plants is intimately related to enhancing their thermal efficiency, which can be achieved by increasing the temperature/pressure of steam. However, any increase in steam temperature is inevitably accompanied by accelerated oxidation of boiler components. The use of renewable fuels such as biomass increases the problem by introducing a number of corrosive compounds into the boiler environment, resulting in more rapid degradation of components. Although thermal sprayed coatings are technocommercially attractive solutions for augmenting the durability of degradation-prone boiler components and are already used, further improvements in their performance are continuously sought. High-velocity air fuel (HVAF) coatings are promising in this context. In the present work, isothermal oxidation behavior of a candidate HVAF-sprayed Ni21Cr was studied in N 2 + 5% O 2 + 20% H 2 O at 600°C for 168h. The oxide scale growth mechanisms were studied by BIB/SEM/EDX to evaluate the effectiveness of the coatings. It was found that the water vapor effect is insignificant due to the Cr reservoir in the Ni21Cr coating, which yielded enhanced oxidation protection by forming nano-scale Cr 2 O 3 .

It is well known that the presence of KCl deposited on superheater tubes in biomass- and waste-fired boilers leads to a severe corrosion and premature damage. In order to protect such critical components which are routinely exposed to aggressive environments, thermal sprayings are frequently proposed as a potential solution. By virtue of the techno-commercial benefits that provides as a direct outcome of its ability to cost-effectively deposit coatings virtually free of porosity and in situ formed oxides, the high velocity air-fuel (HVAF) process offers a particularly attractive approach. In the present work, the influence of KCl on the oxidation behavior of four HVAF-sprayed Ni-based coatings (Ni21Cr, Ni5Al, Ni21Cr7Al1Y, and Ni21Cr9Mo) has been investigated. The coatings were deposited onto specimens of 16Mo3 steel, a widely used boiler tube material. High temperature corrosion tests were carried out in ambient air at 600°C, with 0.1 mg/cm2 KCl being sprayed onto the samples prior to the exposure. Uncoated substrates and an identical test environment without KCl were used as reference. SEM/EDS and XRD techniques were utilized to characterize the as-sprayed and exposed samples. The results showed that the small addition of KCl significantly accelerated damage to the coatings. It was further revealed that the alumina-forming NiAl coating was capable of forming a more protective oxide scale compared to other chromia and mixed-oxide scale forming coatings. In general, the oxidation resistance of the coatings based on the kinetic studies had the following ranking (from the best to the worst): NiAl >NiCr> NiCrAlY> NiCrMo.

In the current work, Ni-20Cr coatings have been developed for potential use in harsh environments of power plant boilers. A pre-synthesized Ni-20Cr nanocrystalline powder was deposited on T22 boiler steel using cold-spray process. The high temperature oxidation behavior of the coating was investigated under cyclic conditions at 900° C for 50 cycles, so as to understand the kinetics of oxidation. Moreover, high temperature erosion-corrosion (E-C) behaviour of the coating was ascertained under cyclic conditions in an actual boiler at 740 ± 10°C for 1500 hours. The oxidized and eroded-corroded samples were characterized using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) analyses. The microhardness, oxidation and E-C data for the developed coating was compared with an earlier reported cold-spray Ni-20Cr coating, which was developed by using a commercially available micron-sized Ni-20Cr powder. The results showed that the developed coating was found to have 33% high microhardness in comparison with the microstructured Ni-20Cr coating. The oxidation and E-C rates of the steel were found to decrease significantly after the application of the developed coating by 89% and 68% respectively. Moreover the nanostructured coating outperformed the corresponding micro-structured Ni- 20Cr coating with regard to high temperature oxidation and E-C resistance to boiler steel by a significant fraction. The investigated coating was found to have oxidation protective oxides such as Cr 2 O 3 and NiO in its oxide scale and was found to be spallation-free.

In the present work, commercially available NiCr and NiCr-TiC powder blends were deposited on boiler steel substrates by HVOF spraying. To evaluate coating performance, bare and coated steel samples were placed in the superheater zone of a coal fired boiler for 15 cycles. Weight change and thickness loss were measured and the results were used to establish erosion-corrosion kinetics. XRD and SEM/EDS techniques were used to analyze the microstructure and phase composition of as-sprayed and eroded-corroded specimens. The improvement in erosion-corrosion resistance provided by the coating may be attributed to the formation of nickel and chromium oxides and spinels.

In this study, several thermal spray coatings and reference materials were evaluated for potential use in biomass co-fired boilers. The coatings were applied to T92, A263, and X10Cr13 substrates by HVOF and wire-arc spraying using powder (IN625, FeCr, NiCr) and wire (NiCrTi) feedstocks. Coating samples were examined then tested for 5900 h in the superheater area of a fluidized bed boiler burning a mixture of wood, peat, and coal. The corrosion behavior of the coating and reference materials is reported in the paper and the underlying corrosion mechanisms are discussed.

Alloys with high amount of chromium are used for protection of power plant boilers against high temperature corrosion, especially heat exchanger surfaces, such as superheaters. Thermal spray coatings can be applied to low alloyed steel in order to enhance the lifetime of the cheap substrate material. In this study NiCr (50Ni49Cr1Fe) powder was sprayed with DJ Hybrid and CJS HVOF techniques, and the spraying process was optimized with process map methodology, including SprayWatch for measuring the temperature and velocity of the spray stream, and ICP (In-situ coating property measurement) for measuring the stress state. Different spraying parameters were applied in order to attain the best suitable coating characteristics for high temperature applications, such as high density and low oxidation stage. The coatings were analyzed e.g. by microscopic means and mechanical testing. The use of process optimization, process-structure- properties methodology, and following coating characteristics are presented.

Agglomerated and sintered Cr 3 C 2 -25%NiCr powders possess excellent flow ability and appearance that have been extensively applied to resist abrase and erosion in high temperature applications such as power boiler and turbine blade. Microstructure of Cr 3 C 2 -25%NiCr coatings were observed through scanning electronic microscope (SEM), and bond strength and microhardness of coatings were measured by tensile shearing test and Vickers hardness test. It is indicated that ultrafine Cr 3 C 2 -25%NiCr coatings have some outstanding properties to traditional Cr 3 C 2 - 25%NiCr coatings by plasma sprayed.

In this investigation, Ni-20Cr alloy powder was deposited on SA 516 boiler steel by cold spraying. The oxidation kinetics of both coated and uncoated samples, evaluated in molten salt, followed a parabolic rate. The rate constant of the Ni-20Cr coated steel was much lower than that of the bare boiler steel. X-ray diffraction, SEM-EDX, and X-ray mapping were used to analyze the oxidation products of the coated and uncoated boiler steel. The uncoated steel exhibited intense spalling and peeling of its oxide scale, which may be due to the formation of Fe 2 O 3 oxides. The Ni-20Cr coating reduced the weight gain of the steel by more than 87% possibly due to the formation of nickel and chromium oxides.

Development of new arc sprayed iron based coatings for protection against gas abrasive wear at room and elevated temperatures are of the great interest because of permanently increasing pressure to reduce production and repair costs of power production facilities. Two cored wires in steel cover with Fe-Cr-B-Al and Fe-Cr-N-Al filling are proposed as an alternative choice for self fluxing and cermet coatings that are considered nowadays for protection of screen tubes of boilers of power stations that are operated under the temperatures 500-600 °C. Oxidation behaviour of arc sprayed coatings is estimated by gravimetric measurements. Abrasive wear resistance at elevated temperatures after 1 hour is investigated by means of laboratory unit that alloys a rotation of coated specimens in heated quartz sand. It is shown that abrasion wear lost of carbon steel increases 1.5 times when test temperature increases from 20 °C to 550 °C. For all investigated coatings the 20-25% decrease of wear lost is observed at higher temperature. Arc sprayed coatings of both investigated systems improve significally the abrasive wear resistance of carbon steel. At room temperature the improvement by factor 1.3-2.2 times and at the temperature 550 °C by factor 2.7-4.6 is observed depending on chemical composition of coatings.

High velocity oxy fuel thermal spray (HVOF) processing is one of the proven thermal spray technologies to develop high temperature oxidation and corrosion resistant coatings for various high temperature applications such as thermal power plants, aero turbines, and energy conversion systems. In the present investigation Nickel based coatings, viz. Ni-5Al, NiCrAl, and NiCrAlY-0.4wt%CeO 2 were sprayed on Fe based superalloy (Superfer 800) by HVOF spray process as the chosen superalloy finds extensive use steam boilers, furnace equipment, heat exchangers and piping in chemical industry The degradation behaviour of the coated superalloy was studied in the aggressive environment of 40%Na 2 SO 4 -60%V 2 O 5 at 900°C, using thermogravimetric technique, to understand the protective nature of the coatings under cyclic conditions. The coatings were found to be effective in increasing the resistance to the degradation in the given environment. Among the coatings investigated, NiCrAlY-0.4wt%CeO 2 coating was found to be more protective on the superalloy in the given aggressive environment. The corrosion mechanisms were elucidated through the X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and microstructural characterization techniques such as FE-SEM/EDAX analysis of the corroded products formed at high temperature.

A study was carried out to determine the role of HVOF-spray Ni-20Cr coatings to enhance high temperature oxidation resistance of T22 and 347H boiler steels. Ni-20Cr coatings were deposited on the boiler steels. Subsequently high temperature oxidation behavior of these coatings was investigated by laboratory tests at an elevated temperature of 9000C under cyclic conditions. These coatings were also subjected to a boiler environment at an elevated temperature of 700ºC under cyclic conditions to ascertain their erosion-corrosion behaviour. Thermogravimetric data was taken after each cycle to formulate the oxidation, as well as, erosion-corrosion kinetics. The specimens were also physically examined after each cycle to notice any macrographic physical changes, spallation tendency of their oxide scales etc. The exposed specimens were examined using scanning electron microscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) analysis. It was observed that oxidation rate was subsequently low in the coated substrates as compare to uncoated steels. It was observed that Ni-20Cr coating on 347H boiler substrate showed the maximum oxidation resistance. Moreover, both the steels showed better resistance to erosion-corrosion in actual boiler conditions after the application of Ni-20Cr coating.

Steel tubes oxidation causes an important problem in Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator plants (MSWI). This work shows a possible solution for this problem through High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF) thermal spray coatings. A comparison between powder and wire thermal spray coatings (with the same composition) has been done. These optimised coatings have been compared through their microstructure, wear properties (ASTM G99-90, ASTM G65-91), and erosion-corrosion (E-C) resistance. Results of the different EC tests designed in the Thermal Spray Centre, have been evaluated by X Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Disperse Spectroscopy (EDS). Commercial bulk material with similar composition of Ni Based coatings has also been tested. The protection mechanisms of these materials have been assessed after studying the results obtained by HVOF coatings and bulk material. Ni based HVOF coatings are a promising alternative to the MSWI conventional protection against chlorine environments.

In Municipal Waste Incinerators (MWI) considerable corrosion problems of critical components, such as superheater or boiler tubes, are always reported. Especially in modern WTE plants the need of efficiency increase requires operation at higher temperatures, which in turn enhances the corrosion rates. Laser cladding technology was successfully used for the production of anticorrosion and resistant-to-erosion coatings on tubes of superheaters and boilers. Compared to protective coatings produced by flame spraying devices, laser cladding is virtually porosity free and metallurgically bonded to the substrate, ensuring the possibility of bending the clad tubes without any damage such as cracks or spalling. This ability to sustain high deformation rate is absolutely necessary for the construction of superheaters serpentines, opening the door to the production of a whole superheaters assembly protected by a laser cladding. Due to the very low thermal load of the process, if compared to usual GMAW welding, laser cladding allows producing coatings with very low iron content (1-3%) even in a single pass with thickness lying in the range 0.7 -1.0 mm. Therefore laser technology enables to produce high quality coatings with a considerable saving in feeding materials, when compared to conventional GMAW welding where 2.5 - 3 mm thick cladding is necessary to have the same iron content of a single pass laser cladding. In this paper are presented advantages of this new technology and CESI RICERCA facilities for industrial production of MWI superheater and boiler clad tubes by its new automatic diode laser workstation. Results of a campaign of in-plant tests and performances obtained in operation by several laser clad components installed in European MWI plants are also presented.

High velocity oxygen-fuel (HVOF) thermal spray processes are used in applications requiring the highest density and adhesion strength, which is not achievable in most other thermal spray processes. Like other thermal spray processes, however, a normal HVOF process is not able to apply fine powders less than 10 µm via a conventional powder feeder. The advantages of using smaller and even nano-sized particles in a HVOF process include uniform coating, less defective microstructure, higher cohesion and adhesion, full density, lower internal stress and higher deposition efficiency. A new process has been developed to realize HVOF forming of fine-grained alloy layers by using liquid precursors containing fine metallic particles. Process investigations have shown the benefits for making single and duplex layered coatings with full density and high bond strength attributing to the very high kinetic energy of particles striking on the substrate surface and the better melting of the small particles. One of the targeted applications is for the water walls of a fossil-fired boiler that operate in a high temperature and corrosive environment. The new coating system is based on material selection, structure design, process innovation and diagnostics, microstructure, and property evaluation. It is promising to provide better protection of the boilers against various types of degradations like corrosion, oxidation, erosion and interfacial failure.