SPRAYING LIQUIDS
Spraying
liquids (suspensions and solutions) enabled deposition of coatings with
refined microstructures. Splats are much smaller than in the case of conventional spraying which allows deposition of new generation of coatings - strain tolerant thermal barriers or very hard and dense wear resistant coatings, can be named.
Suspensions (i.e. fine powders suspended in liquid carrier - typically water or ethanol) can be efficiently sprayed by WSP-H technology. Large plasma power facilitates
carrier evaporation and thus allows high feed rates. In case of
solutions, deposit material is processed in-situ from dissolved chemical
precursors. All feedstock is thus purely liquid which facilitates injection process by prevention of clogging and sedimentation.
WSP-H was proven to be able to efficiently deposit coatings with wide range of microstructures ranging from dense to ultraporous.
See Resources for more details/examples.