Oxidation Driven Permeation of Iron Oxide Scales by Chloride from Experiment Guided First-Principles Modeling

• In this comprehensive investigation, it is demonstrated how chloride ions may permeate a crack-free oxide scale, thus providing hitherto missing mechanistic insight as to the impacts of KCl(s) or HCl(g) exposures on the high-temperature corrosion of biomass- and waste-fired boilers. Guided by dedicated experimental analyses, mechanistic understanding is gained by means of density functional theory. Chloride ions, being accommodated in oxygen anion vacancies that are generated at the receding magnetite/alloy interface, are driven through the oxide scale by the oxidation process. Intermediate stabilities of quasi-homogeneous transient iron oxychloride species are found, employing potassium ferrite and goethite as complementary cation sinks for the KCl(s) and HCl(g) reactants, respectively. Spontaneous disproportionation of the supersaturated oxychlorides into two different types of chloride decorated magnetite grain boundaries is demonstrated. These motifs are proposed to explain loss of scale integrity as well as accelerated oxidation by offering short-circuiting transient pathways for ion diffusion.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi -- Materialkemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences -- Materials Chemistry (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik -- Metallurgi och metalliska material (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering -- Metallurgy and Metallic Materials (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Kemiteknik -- Korrosionsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Chemical Engineering -- Corrosion Engineering (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)