Steam oxidation has become an important issue for steam power plants as operating temperatures increase from the current 550 to 600-650 8C. For the last 10 years several groups have been carrying out steam oxidation testing of both uncoated substrates and coatings in the laboratory. On the other hand, field testing results are very scarce. In this paper, a comparison of laboratory steam oxidation testing with field test results carried out by Alstom at the Kraftwerk Westfalen power station located in Hamm, Germany will be presented. Both slurry deposited aluminide coatings and uncoated P92 steel have been included in the study. Under steam (atmospheric pressure) and isothermal conditions in the laboratory at 650 8C, spallation of oxides formed on ferritic steels occurs after significantly longer time when compared to exposure to real operating conditions. Oxide spallation results in serious damage in steam power plants by obstructing heat exchanger tubes, erosion of valves and turbine blades, etc. Moreover, the thickness of the oxide scales formed under field testing conditions is significantly higher after similar exposure. On the other hand, aluminide coated P92, which exhibit thickness through cracks, have shown to be stable in the laboratory for up to 60 000 h at 650 8C under steam, without evidence of crack propagation. However, field test results indicate that some degree of crack propagation occurs but without causing substrate attack up to 21 700 h of exposure. Moreover, the aluminium oxide observed in both laboratory and field tested specimens is different.

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In the context of the European project ‘Coatings for Supercritical Steam Cycles’ (SUPERCOAT), the use of steam oxidation resistant coatings on currently available ferritic materials with high creep strength but poor oxidation resistance was investigated in order to allow increase in the operating temperature of steam power plants from 550 to 650 °C. Among the explored coating techniques for this application, chosen on the basis of being potentially appropriate for coating steam turbine components, High Velocity Oxy Fuel (HVOF) thermal spray has resulted in one of the most successful techniques. Different alloyed materials such as FeCrAl, NiCrSiFeB, FeAl, NiCr and FeCr have been deposited, optimized and tested under flowing steam at 650 °C. Characterization of as deposited and tested samples by metallography, SEM‐EDS and XRD was carried out. Some of these coatings form protective pure chromium or aluminium oxides exhibiting excellent behaviour for at least 15 000 h of exposure, whereas others form less stable complex mixed oxides which nevertheless grow at considerably slower rates than the oxides formed on uncoated P92 (9 wt% Cr ferritic steel).

Diffusion iron aluminide coatings have shown excellent resistance to high temperature oxidation in air, corrosive atmospheres and steam. A study of the diffusion behaviour of slurry applied diffusion aluminide coatings deposited on ferritic steel have been carried out under a 100% flowing steam atmosphere for up to 50,000 h at 650 °C. The results have shown that initially, the coating forms by outward growth possibly including the dissolution of the steel in molten aluminium. At later stages, during exposure to steam at 650 °C, aluminium diffuses inward and moreover, Fe also diffuses outward resulting in the progressive development of Kirkendall porosity. Results have also indicated that in order to form a pure protective Al2O3 scale the Al wt.% has to be > 4. Below this content Al-Fe mixed oxides develop exhibiting a less protective behaviour.