Achieving higher plant efficiencies in thermal power plants is one of the major global
challenges from the viewpoint of reducing carbon dioxide emission levels, particularly in
coal-fired boilers. To this end, the goal in the development of ultra supercritical (USC)
coal-fired boilers is to increase steam temperature from current value of 600°C to 700°C.
The key to achieving 700°C USC boilers lies in the development of higher creep rupture
strength alloys such as Ni-based and Fe-Ni based alloys, which have capability of
operating under high stresses at these higher temperatures. Other key requirements for
these materials are high temperature corrosion resistance against coal ash corrosion and
steam oxidation in super-heater and re-heater tubes used for USC boilers. In this paper,
high temperature corrosion properties of several candidate alloys for 700°C USC boilers
have been studied using laboratory tests.
Keywords: coal ash corrosion, steam oxidation, USC boiler, super-heater, re-heater,
Ni base alloy, Fe-Ni base alloy