Plasma Spray Coating of Fly ash mixing with Quartz and Illmenite

Overlay coatings have the unique advantage to provide longer service life, to the machine components operated at harsh environmental conditions. Thermal plasma spray technology is used for depositing any type of coating material on different (even) complex shaped machine components, to prevent wear thermal and other degradations caused to the components in service. This process has not very wide spread applications mainly due to the high cost of spray grade material. Thus, attempts have been made to deposit a ceramic coating on metals using fly ash (the abundantly available thermal power plant waste) with adding quartz and illmenite (FeTiO3) ore minerals, which is also cheaply available. The coatings deposited are characterized for their surface properties, adhesion and wear properties using statistical analysis (Taguchi Technique). It is concluded that, thermal plasma spray coatings of low grade ore minerals mixed with industrial waste can be a suitable material to develop ceramic coatings on metal substrates.