ELCOGAS IGCC power plant in Spain: effect of the gasifier environment on the high alloy steel performance

Abstract

The ELCOGAS power plant in Puertollano (Ciudad Real, Spain), with a gross electrical output of 335 MWe, is the world’s largest capacity Integrated Gasification in Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant. ELCOGAS is a Spanish joint stock company whose shareholders are European utilities and capital good suppliers from European countries.

The gasification is based on the PRENFLO pressurized entrained-flow process with dry fuel dust feeding. The high-pressure (HP) evaporators, located in the same pressure vessel as the gasifier, are one of the most critical components in terms of materials in the gasifier. The corrosion performance of the austenitic Sanicro 28 alloy tubing exposed to the aggressive raw gas in the HP evaporators is being evaluated. For this purpose, destructive examination of calibrated test samples, installed at various accessible locations and removed after different exposure periods, is being performed. Corrosion results of Sanicro 28 samples with more than 11200 operating hours are available and show, in general, low corrosion metal losses in the high temperature gasifier atmosphere.

Keywords:

• Sanicro 28
• coal gasification environment
• high temperature corrosion