Liquid feedstock thermal spray

Deposition of layered coatings from liquid feedstock is the advanced frontier of the thermal spray process. Special sessions have been dedicated to the subject in international conferences on thermal spray, and specific thematic meetings (International Workshops on Suspension and Solution Thermal Spraying) were organized in France in 2007 and 2008. The importance of the method is slowly being seen in industrial domains. The growing interest in liquid feedstock thermal spray stems particularly from the need for newer manufacturing techniques to produce nanostructured coatings. Nanophased materials offer undeniable advantages over their conventional microstructured equivalents. Interesting mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties have been reported with nanophase materials.