Thermal Spray Coatings Engineered from Nanostructured Ceramic Agglomerated Powders for Structural,Thermal Barrier and Biomedical Applications: A Review

Thermal spray coatings produced from nanostructured ceramic agglomerated powders were tailored for different applications, some of which required almost completely opposite performance characteristics (e.g., anti-wear and abradable coatings). The influence of nanostructured materials on important areas, such as, thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) and biomedical coatings was also investigated. It was determined that by controlling the distribution and character of the semi-molten nanostructured agglomerated particles (i.e., nanozones) embedded in the coating microstructure, it was possible to engineer coatings that exhibited high toughness for anti-wear applications or highly friable for use as abradables, exhibiting abradability levels equivalent to those of metallic-based abradables. It is shown that nanozones, in addition to being very important for the mechanical behavior, may also play a key role in enhancing and controlling the bioactivity levels of biomedical coatings via biomimetism. This research demonstrates that these nanostructured coatings can be engineered to exhibit different properties and microstructures by spraying nanostructured ceramic agglomerated powders via air plasma spray (APS) or high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF). Finally, in order to present readers with a broader view of the current achievements and future prospects in this area of research, a general overview is presented based on the main papers published on this subject in the scientific literature.