Molten salts are often used to store thermal energy in concentrating solar power plants. The need for higher temperature thermal energy storage systems has prompted investigation into salts and structural alloys for use at higher temperatures. A eutectic mixture of 68.05 wt% Na₂SO₄: 31.95 wt% NaCl salt is a potential phase change material for such systems, with low cost and high latent heat of fusion. This paper investigates corrosion of Inconel C-276 nickel alloy in this salt under air and argon atmospheres.

It was found that this alloy was aggressively corroded in air at a rate calculated as 64 mm/year, with complex and unique corrosion structure observed. When tested in argon, this corrosion was even more severe, with the sample completely consumed in 5 days. This result was attributed to a basic salt corrosion mechanism which attacked the chromium and iron, whilst sulphur attacked the nickel. The high molybdenum and tungsten content of C-276 was not present in significant concentration in the corrosion product, possibly because these elements formed chloride-based compounds which evaporated. This reinforces that sulphur and oxygen containing salts can be highly corrosive, even to corrosion resistant nickel superalloys under inert atmospheres.

熔盐通常用于在聚光太阳能发电厂中储存热能。对更高温度的热能储存系统的需求促使人们研究在更高温度下使用的盐和结构合金。68.05 wt% Na ₂ SO ₄ : 31.95 wt% NaCl盐的低共熔混合物是用于此类系统的潜在相变材料，具有低成本和高熔化潜热。本文研究了 Inconel C-276 镍合金在空气和氩气气氛下在该盐中的腐蚀。

结果表明，这种合金在空气中以 64 毫米/年的速度剧烈腐蚀，观察到复杂而独特的腐蚀结构。在氩气中进行测试时，这种腐蚀更加严重，样品在 5 天内完全消耗殆尽。这一结果归因于碱性盐腐蚀机制，它侵蚀铬和铁，而硫侵蚀镍。C-276 的高钼和钨含量在腐蚀产物中的浓度并不高，这可能是因为这些元素形成了蒸发的氯化物基化合物。这进一步表明，含硫和含氧的盐具有很强的腐蚀性，甚至对惰性气氛下的耐腐蚀镍高温合金也是如此。