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A Study on the Corrosion Behavior of Carbon Steel Exposed to a H2S-Containing NH4Cl Medium

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Abstract

NH4Cl corrosion failure often occurs in the overhead systems of hydrotreaters, and this failure is always accompanied by the appearance of H2S. A combination of electrochemical and surface spectroscopic (SEM/EDS, AFM, XRD) techniques was used to investigate the effect of different factors, including the surface roughness, temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH and H2S concentration, on the corrosion behavior of carbon steel in an NH4Cl environment with the presence of H2S. The effect of H2S concentrations (at the ppm level) on the corrosion behavior of carbon steel was systematically revealed. The experimental results clearly indicated that the corrosion rate reached a minimum value at 10 ppm H2S. The steel surface was covered by a uniform corrosion product film in a 10 ppm H2S environment, and the corrosion product film was tight and protective. The ammonia from NH4Cl helped maintaining the protectiveness of the corrosion films in this environment. Dissolved oxygen mainly accelerated the cathodic reaction. The cathodic limiting current density increased with increasing temperature, and the anodic branch polarization curves were similar at different temperatures. The anodic current density decreased as the pH decreased, and the cathodic current density increased as the pH decreased. The absolute surface roughness (Ra) of carbon steel increased from 132.856 nm at 72 h to 153.973 nm at 144 h, and the rougher surface resulted in a higher corrosion rate. The critical innovation in this research was that multiple influential factors were revealed in the NH4Cl environment with the presence of H2S.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51605368) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFF0210406).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, People’s Republic of China

    Hai-bo Wang, Yun Li, Guang-xu Cheng & Wei Wu

  2. Research Institute of Lanzhou Petrochemical Corporation, Lanzhou, 730060, People’s Republic of China

    Yao-heng Zhang

Authors
  1. Hai-bo Wang
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  2. Yun Li
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  3. Guang-xu Cheng
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  4. Wei Wu
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Correspondence to Guang-xu Cheng.

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Wang, Hb., Li, Y., Cheng, Gx. et al. A Study on the Corrosion Behavior of Carbon Steel Exposed to a H2S-Containing NH4Cl Medium. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 27, 2492–2504 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-018-3355-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-018-3355-1

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