Stainless sour environment

Chaung, H. E., Watkins, M., and Vaughn, G. A., "Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Stainless Alloys in Sour Environments, CORROSION/85, Paper 227, NACE, Houston, TX, 1985. 

Table 1-19. Stainless steels suitable for direct exposure to a sour environment (NACE International, 1997).

Zeron 100 is a highly alloyed duplex stainless steel for use in aggressive environments. In general, its properties include high resistance to pitting and crevice corrosion, resistance to SCC in both chloride and sour environments, resistance to erosion-corrosion and corrosion fatigue, and excellent mechanical properties. 

Much recent work has been carried out on the development of special alloy materials capable of withstanding the hostile environment found in deep, hot high pressure sour gas wells. Asphahani has recently surveyed (14) progress to date in the field with particular reference to the CO2/H2S/CI environment. The inadequacy of typical 410 type stainless steels in this environment has led to a search for more resistant alloy materials and high iron, nickel base alloys such as Incoloy 825 (30 Fe,... 

Corrosion inhibition is used internally with carbon steel pipes and vessels as an economic corrosion control alternative to stainless steels and alloys, coatings, or non-metallic composites. A particular advantage of corrosion inhibition is that it can be implemented or changed in situ without disruption of the process. For example, in processes that produce environments of increasing corrosivity with time, such as souring oil fields, corrosion can be effectively controlled with a suitable inhibitor. 

Even with advances in alloy development technologies, it still took almost a quarter of a century to improve the nickel-containing alloys of the 600 family of stainless steels to the more corrosion-resistant versions (e.g., alloys 690,22,59, and 2000) that are enabling many applications in extremely aggressive environments found in the chemical industries, nuclear reactors, steam generators, and sour oil and gas production. 

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