Introduction to High Temperature Corrosion

High temperature corrosion is a form of corrosion that does not require the presence of a liquid electrolyte. Sometimes, this type of damage is called "dry corrosion" or "scaling". The term oxidation is ambivalent since it can either refer to the formation of oxides or to the mechanism of oxidation of a metal, i.e. its change to a higher valence than the metallic state. Strictly speaking, high temperature oxidation is only one type of high temperature corrosion. In fact, oxidation is the most important high temperature corrosion reaction.

In most corrosive high temperature environments, oxidation often participates in the high temperature corrosion reactions, regardless of the predominant mode of corrosion. Alloys often rely upon the oxidation reaction to develop a protective scale to resist corrosion attack such as sulfidation, carburization and other forms of high temperature attack. In general, the names of the corrosion mechanisms are determined by the most abundant dominant corrosion products. For example:

High temperature corrosion is a widespread problem in various industries such as: