Presented in this focus issue of Oxidation of Metals are key papers that deal with many fundamental aspects associated with the high-temperature corrosion of materials. Such aspects include diffusion, defects, phase transformations, oxygen permeability, volatilization, both short- and long-term behavior, and mechanical properties of the oxide.

Model systems (pure metals or model alloys) are mostly studied. These studies concern various types of systems (chromia-, alumina-, and zirconia-scale forming systems, titanium alloys, and composite materials) with applications extending from nuclear power generation to aeronautics. Special care to design well-controlled experiments is a common thread of the various studies presented. The use of thermodynamics modeling and sometimes kinetics modeling, but also DFT calculations, is a key focus in several papers. Indeed, there is a systematic trend evolving in the community to use various numerical simulations (from atomistic to mesoscopic scale) as powerful tools for understanding the complexity of high-temperature corrosion processes.

The following key papers stem from presentations that were given at the ninth international conference on high-temperature corrosion and protection of materials (HTCPM2016), which was held at Les Embiez Island, France, on the 15–20th of May 2016.