Abstract
During exploitation and production activities in Sichuan highly sour reservoirs in China, phenomena of elemental sulfur deposition and corrosion were found. Since the characteristic of elemental sulfur depositing on the steel surface has been considered as one of the most important factors that control the corrosion behavior, much more research work is needed to evaluate and predict elemental sulfur corrosion in laboratory by simulating various contact forms between sulfur and steel. In this paper we report the effects of test method and temperature on sulfur corrosion of steel by simulation experiments under different conditions. The forms of sulfur during the tests such as suspending in solution with different content, depositing on the steel surface, paste coverage and molten coverage are investigated. Different corrosion type and rate are found among these tests. Increasing temperature may also change the corrosion type from general corrosion to localized corrosion. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) are also employed in order to reveal the formation characteristics of sulfide corrosion product and its effects on the localized corrosion.
