Abstract
Corrosion-resistant Ni3(Si,Nb) alloys are promising materials of construction for hydrogen-production systems based on the sulfur-iodine thermochemical cycle. In this work, the corrosion rates of three different Ni3(Si,Nb) alloys were measured in boiling 70 wt.% sulfuric acid and a three-stage corrosion mechanism was identified, based on the composition and morphology of surface scale that developed. The α(Ni) + β(Ni3Si) eutectic constituent of the alloy microstructure was selectively attacked by acid and, when present, is detrimental to corrosion resistance. The G-phase (Ni16Si17Nb6) is more passive than the β-matrix and seems to contribute to a lower steady-state corrosion rate.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Harry Meyer at Oak Ridge National Lab for his assistance with the Auger electron spectroscopy experiments, and Eric Bohannan at Missouri S&T for the XRD analyses. This work was supported by a NERI (National Energy Research Institute)-DOE (US Department of Energy) Project (DE-FC07-06ID14753).
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Appendix
If one considers a typical thickness for the silica scale to be 30 microns (Fig. 6a), then using the density of amorphous silica (2.2 g cm−3) and the relative weight fraction of oxygen atoms in silica, one calculates an increase in mass of approximately 0.004 g cm−2 to create the scale. The typical coupon weight loss over the same corrosion time is about five times as great, indicating that coupon dissolution has the greatest effect on the overall change in coupon mass. It is difficult to accurately measure the amount of nickel sulfates in surface scale. But, based on the similar estimation, the weight change caused by the small amount of nickel sulfates (Table 2) is not critical.
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Hsu, JH., Larson, C.M., Newkirk, J.W. et al. The Corrosion Behavior of Ni3(Si,Nb) Alloys in Boiling 70 wt.% Sulfuric Acid. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 25, 510–517 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-016-1883-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-016-1883-0