from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
In this study, suspension plasma spraying of sub-stoichiometric titania was attempted using hybrid water/argon stabilized plasma torch (WSP-H). Porous coatings with fine cauliflower-like columnar microstructure were successfully deposited in two separate experiments with different power levels of the plasma torch. In both cases, high solid-load content (40 wt. %) of the water-based suspension resulted in considerable coating thickness increase per deposition cycle. Coating annealing and partial remelting of the surface asperities were also achieved by additional pass of plasma torch in front of the coating surface. According to X-ray diffraction, all coatings consisted dominantly of rutile phase. Detailed microscopic observation of the as-sprayed and annealed deposits showed that the local coloration of the coating (ranging from dark blue to beige) was driven by the local overheating of the rough coating surface which could also promote the oxygen intake. Moreover, sample annealing was also observed to increase the sample reflectivity as observed by UV-VIS-NIR scanning spectrophotometry.
Keywords: Thermal spraying, plasma spraying, titania, suspension, liquid feedstock, WSP-H© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.