Manganese Constituent in Stainless Steels Oxidized in Oxygen Containing Water Vapor at 800 °C: High Temperature Oxidation and Volatilization

Abstract

Many industrial operations, such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) or combustion processes, have water vapor environments. Stainless steel was applied as part of these applications at high temperatures. The present work investigates high and low manganese content stainless steel that oxidized in an oxygen-containing 5% water vapor at 800 °C. SEM and EDX were performed to analyze oxide formation and ICP-OES was used to detect the volatile species that evaporated from steel surfaces. The results show that manganese in steel increases spallation and reduces Cr volatilization rates in high Mn stainless steel. The average Cr volatilization of high Mn samples is 0.09 × 10-11 g cm-2 s-1, which is about 14 times lower than the ones (1.25 × 10-11 g cm-2 s-1), while Fe and Mn volatilization rates increase by 10 and 62 times, respectively.