Titanium for Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) Systems: Testing and Evaluation

Titanium is now beginning to be seriously considered as a material of construction for power plant flue gas desulfurization (FGD) scrubber systems. Corrosion problems have limited the effectiveness of even super-stainless and high nickel alloys, widely used in the last few years for FGD scrubber construction, while initial testing of titanium has shown it to be highly resistant to corrosion in the acidic chloride conditions of FGD systems.

This paper reviews the results of in-situ testing of titanium stainless, and nickel alloys in FGD scrubber systems, providing a basis for comparing relative alloy performance. The results are correlated with the findings of other in-situ tests as well as laboratory tests simulating the FGD scrubber environment.