Isothermal oxidation behavior of NiCr and NiCrAlY coatings deposited onto low alloy 16Mo3 steel by high‐velocity air fuel (HVAF) process was investigated in 5% O2 + 20% H2O + N2 at 600 °C for 168 h. Whereas NiCrAlY showed lower mass gain compared to NiCr, both coatings succeeded in maintaining the integrity with the substrate during the exposure without any breakaway oxidation. A thin Cr‐rich oxide scale (Cr2O3) formed on NiCr, and a thin mixed oxide scale (Al2O3 with NiCr2O4) formed on NiCrAlY significantly increasing the oxidation protection in the presence of water vapor.

Ni–(35–45)Cr–4Nb alloys containing different fractions of α‐Cr were exposed to potassium chloride (KCl)‐induced corrosion. The corrosion exposures were carried out for 168 hr at 600°C in a 15% (vol/vol) H2O (g) + 5% (vol/vol) O2 (g) + N2 (g; balance) atmosphere using KCl‐free (reference) and predeposited KCl samples. To mimic the KCl deposition in real boilers, 24 hr exposures where KCl vapor condensed continuously onto samples were also performed. The corrosion attack of the studied materials increased significantly when KCl was present compared to the KCl‐free samples. For the KCl exposures, the corrosion attack drastically increased when a significant α‐Cr fraction was present. α‐Cr was either selectively attacked or dissolved through solid‐state diffusion and a layered build‐up of the outer external scale of K2CrO4 and chromia could be observed. For the in situ condensed KCl exposure, severe corrosion was observed already within the 24 hr exposure, indicating a higher corrosion rate compared with when KCl was predeposited.

Reducing CO2 emissions from power generation plants is intimately related to enhancing their thermal efficiency, which can be achieved by increasing the temperature/pressure of steam. However, any increase in steam temperature is inevitably accompanied by accelerated oxidation of boiler components. The use of renewable fuels such as biomass increases the problem by introducing a number of corrosive compounds into the boiler environment, resulting in more rapid degradation of components. Although thermal sprayed coatings are technocommercially attractive solutions for augmenting the durability of degradation-prone boiler components and are already used, further improvements in their performance are continuously sought. High-velocity air fuel (HVAF) coatings are promising in this context. In the present work, isothermal oxidation behavior of a candidate HVAF-sprayed Ni21Cr was studied in N2 + 5% O2 + 20% H2O at 600°C for 168h. The oxide scale growth mechanisms were studied by BIB/SEM/EDX to evaluate the effectiveness of the coatings. It was found that the water vapor effect is insignificant due to the Cr reservoir in the Ni21Cr coating, which yielded enhanced oxidation protection by forming nano-scale Cr2O3.