Lanthanum cerate thermal barrier coatings generated from thermal plasma synthesized powders

Lanthanum cerate (La₂Ce₂O₇, LC) is one of the promising advanced thermal barrier coating (TBC) materials due to its high melting point, no phase transformation between room temperature and operating temperature, low thermal conductivity, comparable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) with metallic substrate. The present study investigates plasma transferred arc synthesis of LC powder, its subsequent spheroidization in a thermal plasma jet and plasma spray deposition. The PTA-synthesized LC powder, spheroidized as well as the plasma sprayed coatings was found to possess excellent phase stability; the single phase cubic fluorite structure of LC was found to be retained even after prolonged arc-melting, corroborating that the material was stable from room temperature up to its melting point. It was observed that PTA melting for longer duration resulted in small deviation from stoichiometry, although the phase structure of LC was retained. Spheroidization efficiency was found to increase with the input power of the torch. Very good adherent LC coatings could be deposited on nickel super alloy with reasonably good deposition efficiency.