Thermal Barrier Coatings Manufactured by Suspension Plasma Spraying - A Review

Thermal barrier coatings (TBC) is one of the most intensively studied of coatings’ applications area. From 1970’s TBC are developed in two independent ways: (i) development in new materials, with lower thermal conductivity, better erosion resistance and better thermal shock resistance or (ii) development in new deposition techniques. On this field besides conventional atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) and almost conventional (because of very common use) EB-PVD method, in the past 20 years two new techniques have been developed, namely suspension plasma spraying (SPS) and solution precursor plasma spraying (SPPS). In this paper only SPS method was described, as well as, new materials, which could be used in industrial applications of TBC. Moreover, the key issues, like suspension preparation, type of suspension injection, interaction between liquid droplets and plasma jet and deposition mechanism were described.