CTS (Cincinnati Thermal Spray Inc.) and SST (Solution Spray Technologies LLC), Storrs, Conn., announce a non-exclusive license agreement that solidifies a long-term partnership with goals to further commercialize the solution precursor plasma spray process (SPPS). In this partnership, SST will be working directly with CTS engineers to replicate Solution Spray’s SPPS coating process at the CTS Technology Center located in Cincinnati.
CTS has already placed investments in areas such as specialized liquid feeding equipment and next-generation plasma spray process control systems to support the program. Upon the installation of the equipment, CTS and SST will begin executing a full scope R&D program in Cincinnati to further enhance the SPPS process with preliminary targets set to increase process throughput. The two teams are also working closely to identify and introduce these unique coating technologies to a wide variety of new markets.
SST personnel pioneered the solution precursor plasma spray (SPPS) approach, in which a liquid chemical precursor that contains specified cations is atomized into the plasma jet. The injected solution evaporates and the resulting salts are pyrolyzed, followed by melting and deposition as micron-sized splats.
The SPPS process results in smaller splat sizes of <2 microns (vs 30-100 microns with traditional APS powder processes). This makes many unique microstructures possible, ranging from highly porous to highly dense. For example, the SPPS process can enable the deposition of thin (<50 microns), dense (<5% porosity) coatings, which is very difficult to do with powder-based processes.
The SPPS technology offers the potential to process ceramic coatings with unique microstructures and compositions that are difficult or expensive to process with other competing processes. A fast, high-throughput process for SPPS can be a game-changing enabler for the introduction of plasma sprayed ceramic coatings for a wide range of microstructures, ranging from thick coatings with controlled vertical cracking suitable for thermal barrier coatings, to thin dense coatings suitable for corrosion protection.
