Jie Qiu,Bin Leng,Huajian Liu,Digby D. Macdonald,Angjian Wu,Yanyan Jia,Wandong Xue,Guojun Yu,Xingtai Zhou
The effect of SO 4 2− on the corrosion behavior of 316 L stainless steel (SS) in molten FLiNaK (LiF-NaF-KF: 46.5–11.5–42 mol.%) salt was studied. Results reveal that the SO 4 2− in the salt remarkably accelerates the corrosion of 316 L SS by promoting the dissolution of Cr, leading to increasing intergranular corrosion of the alloy. On the other hand, the results of structural characterization indicate that the SO 4 2− can react with Mn to form MnS at the grain boundaries of the alloy. The galvanic couple between MnS and steel matrix could further accelerate the intergranular corrosion of 316 L SS in molten fluoride salt environments.
Chengyu Wang,Xinyu Zhang,Ming Cheng,Wentao Zhou,Yafei Wang
It is well established that the oxidizing species with high redox potentials could initiate and significantly accelerate the structural material corrosion in molten salt. However, here we found that the presence of Ce 3+ , an electrochemically less active cation, in LiCl-KCl eutectic molten salt could also enhance alloy corrosion. This effect was demonstrated through the corrosion behavior study of Inconel 600 alloy exposed to LiCl-KCl eutectic melt containing varying concentrations of CeCl 3 at 500 °C under an inert Ar atmosphere. The corrosion behavior study was performed by both the static immersion corrosion tests and electrochemical analyses. As the concentration of CeCl 3 increases from 0.5 wt% to 5 wt% and 10 wt%, the corrosion depth increases from 3.43 μm to 16.00 μm and 18.86 μm, leading to progressively severe wormhole corrosion due to chromium dissolution. The enhanced corrosion mechanism of Inconel 600 alloy was attributed to the formation of CeOCl driven by trace oxygen present in the Ar atmosphere. This study highlights the previously underestimated role of less oxidizing metal species in molten salt corrosion and provides new insights for the future study in molten salt applications.