Conventional thermal spray processes as atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) have to use easily flowable powders with a size up to 100 lm. This leads to certain limitations in the achievable microstructural features. Suspension plasma spraying (SPS) is a new promising processing method which employs suspensions of sub-micrometer particles as feedstock. Therefore much finer grain and pore sizes as well as dense and also thin ceramic coatings can be achieved. Highly porous coatings with fine pore sizes are needed as electrodes in solid-oxide fuel cells. Cathodes made of LaSrMn perovskites have been produced by the SPS process. Their microstructural and electrochemical properties will be presented. Another interesting application is thermal barrier coating (TBC). SPS allows the manufacture of high-segmented TBCs with still relatively high porosity levels. In addition to these specific applications also the manufactures of new microstructures like nano-multilayers and columnar structures are presented.

Suspension plasma spraying (SPS) offers the manufacture of unique microstructures which are not possible with conventional powdery feedstock. Due to the considerably smaller size of the droplets and also the further fragmentation of these in the plasma jet, the attainable microstructural features like splat and pore sizes can be downsized to the nanometer range. Our present understanding of the deposition process including injection, suspension plasma plume interaction, and deposition will be outlined. The drawn conclusions are based on analysis of the coating microstructures in combination with particle temperature and velocity measurements as well as enthalpy probe investigations. The last measurements with the water cooled stagnation probe gives valuable information on the interaction of the carrier fluid with the plasma plume. Meanwhile, different areas of application of SPS coatings are known. In this paper, the focus will be on coatings for energy systems. Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) for modern gas turbines are one important application field. SPS coatings offer the manufacture of strain-tolerant, segmented TBCs with low thermal conductivity. In addition, highly reflective coatings, which reduce the thermal load of the parts from radiation, can be produced. Further applications of SPS coatings as cathode layers in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and for photovoltaic (PV) applications will be presented.

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Yttria partially stabilized zirconia (YSZ) coatings are widely used for thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) to increase operating temperature of gas turbines. In the wavelength range where most of the radiation by walls and combustion gas is emitted within the gas turbine YSZ is semitransparent leading to increasing radiation heat flows into the components at increasing service temperatures. The objective of this work is to optimize the diffuse reflectance of plasma‐sprayed TBCs by improving the coating microstructure such that the reflectance of radiation is increased. As a result, a more efficient thermal screening of the underlying metallic substrate is achieved. In this work, air plasma‐sprayed and suspension plasma‐sprayed (SPS) coatings of 7% YSZ using powder of different grain size distributions and different spray parameters were deposited. The reflectance and transmittance has been investigated in the wavelength range from 0.3 to 2.5 μm. The SPS‐coatings showed the highest reflectance up to 94% at 1.5 μm wavelength. In addition, the scattering and absorption coefficients of the sprayed TBCs calculated with the Kubelka–Munk two flux model showed strong correlation with the measured porosity. By improving the microstructure, we were able to reduce thermal conductivity while increasing scattering of radiation, resulting in lower heat flow and lower temperature at the metallic substrate. These results are strengthened by numerical calculations.