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The major drawback to generating electricity from waste fired boilers is the rapid corrosion of superheaters which increases the maintenance costs. Within the last few years, it has been shown that additions of ammonium sulphate to biomass fired boilers decrease the corrosion tendencies. This paper reports on the effects of ammonium sulphate on corrosion in a waste fired CFB boiler. Air cooled probes were exposed at a position corresponding to the one of superheater tubes. The probe temperature was 500uC, corresponding to a steam temperature of y450uC. Both the austenitic steel EN1?4301 (Fe-18Cr-9Ni) and the low alloyed ferritic steel EN1?7380 (Fe-2?25Cr-1Mo) were tested. During exposure, the concentration of alkali chlorides in the flue gas was measured and a decrease was observed when adding ammonium sulphate. After 4 h of exposure, the probes were removed for detailed analysis with SEM-EDS, TOF-SIMS and XRD. The sides of the tubes facing the flue gas were covered with a calcium rich deposit, while relatively more sodium and potassium were present on the lee side. The results also show that ammonium sulphate shifted the deposit composition from chloride rich and highly corrosive, to one significantly less corrosive and dominated by sulphates of sodium, potassium and calcium. Metallography shows a marked difference in corrosion attack between the two steels. Iron chlorides accumulate at the metal/oxide interface of the ferritic steel, while the amounts of iron chlorides were significantly lower in the austenitic steel. These results indicate that ammonium sulphate has the potential to reduce corrosion in waste fired boilers and that austenitic stainless steels are more likely to resist corrosion in these environments than low alloyed ferritic steels.

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