Corrosion of Carbon Steel in an Arsenic Trioxide Reduction Atmosphere Using Carbonaceous Materials for Elemental Arsenic Production

Elemental arsenic (As) is essential for diverse industrial applications. Most elemental As in China is produced by reducing gaseous arsenic trioxide (As₂O₃) with carbonaceous materials in steel reactors. This study aimed to extend the reactor lifespan through corrosion experiments and analysis. In this study, corroded regions of steel reactors were inspected after each production batch, and the corrosion process was examined. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to identify the major corrosion products, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) was used to measure the composition of corroded area, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were used to inspect the features and elemental distributions of the corroded steel-plate cross-sections. The results revealed that the steel wall near the charcoal zone exhibited the highest corrosion rate. Tin (Sn), selenium (Se), and antimony (Sb) did not promote the corrosion process, whereas carbon (C) accelerated it by forming an Fe-As-C system at the grain boundaries of the steel matrix, characterized by a low melting temperature. The important source of C responsible for initiating corrosion was solid-state C particles originating from reused materials from previous batches. Additionally, owing to the high processing temperature, oxygen (O) was transferred to the inner side of the steel wall before the dramatical corrosion of the matrix by elemental As and C. Results of this study provide references to increase the lifespan of steel reactors for elemental As production.