With the desire for a clean living environment and the increasing demands for cost competitive energy supply, advanced fuel combustion technologies have been proposed and are being developed. The deployment of these technologies has been hindered by unanticipated corrosion damage within core components (such as boilers and flue gas components) at pilotscale demonstration plants. To deal with such materials technology challenges, studies have been carried out, but there is still substantial R&D required to meet the emerging industrial demands. A comprehensive review of open database information regarding the corrosion of flue gas systems in existing combustion plants was therefore conducted in this review. It is anticipated that this information will provide a basis for addressing knowledge gaps in materials technologies and advancing the mechanistic understanding of how alloys corrode in flue gas operating environments. Corrosion modes, the effects of aggressive agents (including CO 2 , HCl, SO x , and NO x ) in flue gas mixtures, and the performance of candidate metallic materials in typical combustion systems are systemically reviewed and discussed. From corrosion and economic points of view, F/M steels (P91 and P92), austenitic stainless steels (SS317, 254SMO, and 654SMO etc.), and duplex steels (2205 and 2507) are likely to be major candidates for the construction of future flue gas systems in the fossil fuel powered industries. Ni-based alloys, particularly Alloy C-276 and Alloy C-22, are more applicable for flue gas components in biomass and waste-to-energy energy combustion systems.