Spray dried nano oxide ceramics for free flowing plasma spray coating powders and battery material processing

Advanced materials are widely used in electronics, aerospace and automobile industry devices and also in substances synthesized for food, medical and pharmaceutical industries. The quality of the base material powder has high influence on the resulting material body (the product) which goes into the manufacture of the device. To name a few (a) flowable ceramic powders from agglomerated nano ceramic powders for plasma spray coatings with the right sprayable powder characteristics (b) advanced graphene encapsulated nano ceramic oxide powders with uniform conductive coating layers as promising electrodes in Li-Ion batteries, (c) advanced bio-ceramic oxides such as hydroxy-apatite ceramic materials with right amounts of moisture, density and composition consistency as bone and dental implants in bio-ceramics research are examples. Among the many processing methods to achieve the base powders from nano ceramic raw materials the most capable and efficient is ‘Spray Drying’ which results in powders with high purity with well-defined properties. Complex composite by spray drying is achieved where the ‘matrix host’ material is encapsulated by the ‘guest layer’ with special properties. This paper illustrates results pertaining to experimentation via spray drying and microscopic investigation by using SEM associated with EDS on (a) Yttria stabilized zirconia plasma sprayable powders for Thermal Barrier Coatings application and (b) nano yttria stabilized zirconia incorporated into microns sized alumina powders for enhanced densification, to understand the significant role of process parameters on uniformity and consistency of the spray dried products. Information based on review on spray dried Li-ion battery materials is also included.