Refinery plants, high-temperature corrosion

American Petroleum Institute, Risk based inspection — base resource document, API Recommended Practice 581, First Edition, 2000 American Petroleum Institute, Steels for hydrogen service at elevated temperatures and pressures in petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants, American National Standard/ API Recommended Practice 941, Sixth Edition, 2004 Barrien, P., Optimising refinery dependability and turnaround costs by application of a risk based inspection programme . Paper 588, Corrosion 98 NACE, 1998 Barrien, P, Jarvis, P, Townsend, R.D., Risk based inspection and maintenance optimisation of high temperature plant , Conf. Operating Pressure Equipment, Brisbane, Australia, 7-11 April 1997... 

Gas treatment plants and gas refineries are bothered by corrosion problems. Much of these are caused by the breakdown of solvents, e.g. monoethanolamine, at the elevated temperatures of the reboiler regenerator. It is postulated that the breakdown products can chelate with iron and prevent the formation of an insoluble protective film at the high pH of operation, which should preclude corrosion of iron. 

Austenitic steels provide excellent corrosion, oxidation, and sulfidation resistance with high creep resistance, toughness, and strength at temperatures greater than 565 °C. Thus they are used in refineries for heater tubes, heater tube supports, and in amine, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), catalytic hydro-desulfurization (CHD) sulfur, and hydrogen plants. 

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