Development of novel and cost effective corrosion resistant coatings for high temperature geothermal applications
Acronym: Geo-Coat
Funding body: European Commission
Status: Project
The Geo-coat project has been specified as necessary by our geothermal power and equipment manufacturing members, who, in order to reliably provide energy, need to improve plant capability to withstand corrosion, erosion and scaling from geofluids, to maintain the equipment up-time and generation efficiency. Additionally they need to be able to produce better geothermal power plant equipment protection design concepts through virtual prototyping to meet the increasing
requirements for life cycle costs, environmental impacts and end-of-life considerations.
Geothermal sources are very aggressive natural environments. High temperature and pressure conditions, as well as corrosive salts, represent a major threat to the integrity of the various components of geothermal power plants including liners and well casings, well heads, turbines, pumps, valves, heat exchangers, pipes, separators and condensers. Current materials, transferred from oil and gas applications to these exceptionally harsh environments, (and the corresponding design models) are not capable of performing, leading to constant need to inspect and repair damage.
The Geo-coat project will develop new resistant materials in the form of high performance coatings of novel targeted 'High Entropy Alloys" and Cermets, thermally applied to the key specified vulnerable process stages (components in turbine in response to the specific corrosion and erosion forces we find at each point. We will also capture the underlying principles of the material resistance, to proactively design the equipment for performance while minimising overall capex costs from these expensive materials.
The Geo-coat consortium has user members from geothermal plant operations and equipment manufactures to ensure the project's focus on real-world issues, coupled with world-leading experience in the development of materials, protective coatings and their application to harsh environments. In addition to developing the new coating materials and techniques, we also aim to transfer our experiences from the development of Flow Assurance schemes for Oil&Gas and Chemical industries to provide a new overarching set of design paradigms and generate an underpinning Knowledge Based System.