Accelerated Ageing of Solar Reciever Coatings: Experimental Results for T91 and VM12 Steel Substrates

This paper reports experimental results for accelerated ageing test campaigns performed on four different solar receiver coatings applied on T91 and VM12 steel substrates. VM12 tubular samples are exposed at a dish test facility in order to perform thermal cycles under concentrated solar flux. No significant optical degradation could be observed on coated samples after 100 thermal cycles (50 hours at 650 °C), while bare and polished reference substrates oxidized during testing. Three solar receiver coatings achieved a stable solar weighted absorptance αs above 95 % after exposure. A selective coating further showed a thermal emittance of 25 % at 650 °C, instead of 65-75 % for non-selective coatings, thus achieving a thermal efficiency above 90 % at 250 kW/m2, instead of 85 % for non-selective coatings. T91 coated metal coupons were tested in four standard climate test chambers for condensation, damp heat, humidity freeze and neutral salt spray. Two non-selective coatings passed all climate tests without significant optical degradation, while the selective coating did not pass the neutral salt spray test due to severe corrosion

Advances in Corrosion-Resistant Thermal Spray Coatings for Renewable Energy Power Plants. Part I : Effect of Composition and Microstructure

Power generation from renewable resources has attracted increasing attention in recent years owing to the global implementation of clean energy policies. However, such power plants suffer from severe high-temperature corrosion of critical components such as water walls and superheater tubes. The corrosion is mainly triggered by aggressive gases like HCl, H2O, etc., often in combination with alkali and metal chlorides that are produced during fuel combustion. Employment of a dense defect-free adherent coating through thermal spray techniques is a promising approach to improving the performances of components as well as their lifetimes and, thus, significantly increasing the thermal/electrical efficiency of power plants. Notwithstanding the already widespread deployment of thermal spray coatings, a few intrinsic limitations, including the presence of pores and relatively weak intersplat bonding that lead to increased corrosion susceptibility, have restricted the benefits that can be derived from these coatings. Nonetheless, the field of thermal spraying has been continuously evolving, and concomitant advances have led to progressive improvements in coating quality; hence, a periodic critical assessment of our understanding of the efficacy of coatings in mitigating corrosion damage can be highly educative. The present paper seeks to comprehensively document the current state of the art, elaborating on the recent progress in thermal spray coatings for high-temperature corrosion applications, including the alloying effects, and the role of microstructural characteristics for understanding the behavior of corrosion-resistant coatings. In particular, this review comprises a substantive discussion on high-temperature corrosion mechanisms, novel coating compositions, and a succinct comparison of the corrosion-resistant coatings produced by diverse thermal spray techniques