Real-Time Corrosion Monitoring of a Boiler Tube Using Hydrogen Flux

The present paper compares hydrogen flux rates from a recovery boiler tube during two planned maintenance outages and respective re-starts.  An acid wash of the boiler tubes was performed during the first outage, but not the second.   A non-intrusive, online hydrogen effusion probe was used to monitor hydrogen flux in real-time.  Those two datasets were then plotted side-by-side in order to compare the effect of the acid wash on the corrosion rate.  This is believed to be the first successful attempt to quantifiably compare pre, during, and post-cleaning corrosion rates of recovery boiler tubes.

Keywords:  Hydrogen flux, acid wash, boiler tubes, corrosion rate