Boilers and burners: design and theory By Prabir Basu, Kefa Cen, Louis Jestin

Dew point corrosion - APH

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Air_preheater
The dew point of air or any other gas containing water vapor usually refers to t
he temperature (for a given pressure) at which the air or gas is saturated with
water vapor. That means that the air or gas is at the point where the water vapo
r will start to condense into liquid water if the temperature is lowered beyond
that point.
As a broad generality, the combustion flue gases from steam generators fuelled b
y coal, fuel oil, natural gas, or biomass are composed of carbon dioxide (CO2) a
nd water vapor (H2O) as well as nitrogen and excess oxygen remaining from the in
take combustion air. Typically, more than two-thirds of the flue gas is nitrogen
. The combustion flue gases may also contain small percentages of air pollutants
such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides
in the form of gaseous sulfur dioxide (SO2) and gaseous sulfur trioxide (SO3).
The SO3 is present because a portion of the SO2 formed in the combustion of the
sulfur compounds in the steam generator's furnace fuel is further oxidized to SO
3 as the flue gas travels through the superheater and reheater sections of the s
team generator (see the above diagram of a steam generator). The gas phase SO3 t
hen combines the vapor phase H2O to form gas phase sulfuric acid H2SO4:[10]
H2O + SO3 ? H2SO4
Because of the presence of gaseous sulfuric acid, the dew point of most flue gas
es is much higher than the water dew point of air and the flue gas dew point is
referred to as the acid dew point. That is the flue gas temperature at which aci
d will begin to condense out of the flue gas if the temperature is lowered beyon
d that point. For example, a flue gas with 5 volume % water vapor and containing
no acid gases has a water dew point of about 32 C (90 F). The same flue gas with
the addition of only 0.01 volume percent of SO3 will have an acid dew point of a
bout 118 C (244 F).[11]
The acid dew point of a combustion flue gas depends upon the composition of the
specific fuel being burned and the resultant composition of the flue gas. Given
a flue gas composition, its acid dew point can be predicted fairly closely. As a
n approximation, the acid dew points of flue gases from thermal power plants ran
ge from about 120 C to about 150 C (250 to 300 F).
All of the air preheater types incur erosion problems to some extent from the fl
y ash particles in the flue gas. If the hot flue gas temperature in an air prehe
ater is lowered to below its acid dew point, then the air preheater also incurs
corrosion problems which can be quite severe. That is especially true of the tub
ular air preheaters. For that reason, many air preheaters have a means for the a
ir to partially bypass the air preheater (see above tubular air preheater diagra
m) so that the amount of heat exchange can be controlled to avoid lowering the f
lue gas temperature below the acid dew point.
To mitigate dew point corrosion, the tubular air preheaters may use ceramic or T
eflon-coated tubes and the regenerative air preheaters may use special corrosion
-resistant steels or enameled materials.
The addition of limestone (CaCO3) into circulating fluidized bed (CFB) steam gen
erators results in capturing 95% or more of the gaseous SO2 in the combustion pr
oduct gases as solid calcium sulfate (Ca2SO4) and that occurs before the SO2 has
time to be further oxidized to SO3. Thus, the acid dew point of the flue gas fr
om a CFB steam generator is higher than from conventional thermal power plant st
eam generators. That means that the air preheaters in CFB units have considerabl
y less dew point corrosion problems. That may also be one of the reasons why a n
umber of the newer CFB units are using tubular preheaters.