A Novel Type of Environmentally Friendly Slurry Coatings

A variety of commercial slurries are available to aluminize the surfaces of nickel-based superalloys; however, they have three main disadvantages. First, the phosphates and chromates or halides used as binders or to activate the diffusion species are environmentally harmful and toxic; second, the slurry coatings can only produce high-aluminum-activity coatings which form precipitate-rich coatings that are detrimental to adherence. Finally, these coatings are limited to the incorporation of aluminum and silicon, whereas the co-deposition of other elements such as chromium or cobalt has not been achieved so far. In this work, the limitations of slurry coatings have been overcome by carefully designing the powder composition and controlling the process to produce co-deposition coatings with chromium, cobalt, or nickel by using nontoxic water-based slurries. This also opens an effective way to control Al activity and to produce low-activity aluminized coatings for the first time when using the slurry technique. These results expand the application range of slurry coatings so they can also be applied under ambient atmosphere, making it possible to fully coat aero engine pieces or large-scale industrial components, providing all properties that are usually only achieved by using more complex and expensive methods such as chemical vapor deposition. Furthermore, these new coatings offer unique advantages that can be very favorable especially as a repairing technique.