Microstructure and Property of Plasma Sprayed TiB2 Wettable Coatings on Carbon Cathodes

In this work, fine-lamellar structured TiB2 ceramic wettable cathode coatings were deposited on carbon cathodes of aluminium oxide reduction cells by atmosphere plasma spraying (APS). Cathode carbon blocks consisting of coatings 800 mu m thick of plasma sprayed TiB2 finepowder on carbon substrate were fabricated. In order to investigate the results of coating, the microstructure and phase composition of the wettable cathode coating were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It is found that TiB2 fine-powders were partly oxidized during the plasma spraying process. The coating was mostly formed by a matrix of fully molten particles where the presence of semi-molten feedstock agglomerates. The APS method is believed to be a good choice to deposit TiB2 wettable cathode coating with high performance and reliability.