Abstract
Successful commercialization of biomass pyrolysis and related liquefaction technology to make liquid fuels will require identification of low-cost, corrosion-resistant materials for use in production, transportation, and storage of bio-oils. Austenitic stainless steels are the primary alloys of interest for these applications. X-ray diffraction, electron probe microanalysis, and scanning transmission electron microscopy with focused ion beam lift-out sample preparation techniques were employed to investigate the corrosion products in a 304L (UNS S30403) stainless steel fluidized-bed reactor segment from Iowa State University’s Pyrolysis Process Development Unit Facility. This reactor segment is particularly valuable because a detailed history of operation time, temperature, and biomass feedstock was available. As previously reported for a range of stainless steel pyrolysis-related equipment, external scaling and internal attack along alloy grain boundaries were observed. The scaling was primarily associated with O, although S, Ca, K, Si, Mg, and P were also detected in the outer scale regions. However, unlike those other recent advanced characterization analyses, in this instance the internal alloy grain boundary attack was not directly related to S. Instead, only internal oxidation and localized nanoporosity were observed along the alloy grain boundaries, with associated local nanoscale Cr depletion and Ni enrichment. Mechanistic implications of this result are discussed.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1136-1145 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Corrosion |
Volume | 75 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2019 |
Funding
This research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paidup, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors thank Jay Jun, Sebastien Dryepondt, and Bruce Pint for helpful comments on the manuscript. Adam Willoughby, Tyson Jordan, and Tracie Lowe are thanked for their assistance with the experimental work, and Donna Baltrip for formatting this paper.
Keywords
- Biomass
- Corrosion
- Microscopy
- Oxidation
- Pyrolysis
- Stainless steel
- Sulfidation