Maxterial, Inc. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 26b

Description

Boiler tube failure is a leading cause of downtime in fossil energy power plants. Therefore, protecting boiler tubes against failure can improve reliability and reduce maintenance costs. Maxterial proposes developing a surface technology (a coating) to enhance boiler tubes' resistance against different failure mechanisms. The proposed coating has a unique superalloy composition. Superalloys are currently used as bulk materials, for example, for making the whole tube. Parts made of superalloys provide great corrosion and thermal performance; however, their cost is prohibitively high. The cost of parts made of superalloys can be ten times more than the cost of stainless steel used today. We are proposing to cover boiler tubes on both fireside and waterside with thin layers of the proposed superalloy coating. Therefore, our material cost will be almost like the base tube material, while we will potentially get the same performance as Superalloys. In Phase I, we will develop a proprietary electroless (autocatalytic) process to manufacture the proposed coating. The proposed manufacturing process enables the uniform application of the coating on both fireside and waterside of the tubes. The electroless process will be developed by finding the proper setting of the manufacturing parameters. Phase I aims to develop an integrated coating with a proper superalloy composition to resist against different failure modes. Our team includes industry experts with around 50 years of experience in the coating industry. We worked on the electroplated version of the coating for more than five years. This version presents outstanding corrosion protection and good wear performance. These characteristics have been supported by different standard tests performed by accredited third-party labs and our corporate partners. The proposed electroless version of the coating is also expected to exhibit similar corrosion and wear performances. The proposed technology can also help the United States achieve its goals toward enabling ultra- supercritical coal power plants by increasing the thermal resistance of the boilers’ tubes. The coating can also create values in other applications in the power plant industry than boilers, for instance, corrosion protection of abatement systems. Higher corrosion protection enables lower temperatures of the flue gas and better elimination of NOx and SOx emissions in the abatement systems. The proposed coating has applications beyond the power plant industry as well. For instance, the coating can enable the replacement of regulated chrome coating in some applications. Chrome coating has a cancer-causing manufacturing process that has resulted in some of the contaminations in Lake Michigan. Due to this reason, regulatory agencies have sought to eliminate chrome coating from the industry by 2024. The industry is particularly interested in the hard chrome replacement for non-line of sight applications, such as inside tubes. The reason for this high interest is that thermal spray coating, as the main existing hard chrome replacement with limited success, cannot be applied on non-line of sight surfaces. Furthermore, electroless nickel coating, the other potential replacement of chrome coating, does not provide enough corrosion and wear performance for certain applications. Several support letters from industry leaders are provided as the attachments of this proposal. These letters support the commercial applications and other benefits of the technology.