New and cost effective alloys for diesel reforming

Purpose and goal

Novel technological innovations find often their limitation in corrosion issues. If it comes to innovations thriving to reach for a more sustainable use of resources urgency is given to overcome the corrosion limitation factor in the case of NewCard, high loss of alloyed chromium in stainless steel by high temperature volatilization in air/steam mixtures. The NewCard project group has developed material that can withstand these harsh conditions without releasing chromium species into the gas stream and demonstrated it in operation conditions of a PowerCell Powerpack reformer.

Expected results and effects

Two potential materials have been identified and thoroughly tested. Both show the potential to reduce the loss of alloyed chromium from a steel exposed to high temperature steam/air loads as e.g. present in heat exchangers and pipes. We expect that this result will close a crucial technological gap and will be of high value for creating highly air/steam resistant products.

Planned approach and implementation

In the NewCard project a seamless chain from model alloy to demonstration under operation condition was achieved: Production and machining of model alloys at Kanthal AB, laboratory exposure and microstructural analysis at Chalmers University of Technology, full batch production of an optimized alloy after evaluation, demonstration under operation conditions in a test rig at PowerCell AB.