Thermal valorization of poultry litter (PL) poses significant challenges due to severe corrosion caused by its high ash and chlorine content, which strongly limits its use in energy recovery systems. This study investigates the corrosive behaviour of PL ash and evaluates the effectiveness of mineral additives as a practical mitigation strategy. The corrosion performance of boiler steels 10CrMo9-10 and 16Mo3 exposed to PL ash was examined at 510 °C and 560 °C using gravimetric analysis, microstructural characterization (SEM-EDX), and thermochemical modelling (FactSage). The results demonstrate that untreated PL ash causes rapid degradation of oxide scales through Cl-driven corrosion mechanisms, combined with local low-temperature melt formation at temperatures as low as 525 °C. This temperature is more than 500 °C lower than the measured ash shrinkage starting temperature (SST). The addition of aluminosilicate minerals modifies the ash chemistry, reduces Cl content by up to 53 %, and suppresses the formation of molten phases. As a result, corrosion rates were reduced by up to 62 %, and the integrity of the oxide scales was significantly improved. Among the tested additives, kaolin and halloysite showed higher effectiveness than bentonite. These findings demonstrate that ash chemistry modification is an effective strategy for reducing corrosion-related limitations and facilitating sustainable energy recovery from PL and other chlorine-rich refuse-derived fuels.
Maj et al. (Sat,) studied this question.