Thermal Spraying of Thin Metallic Coatings

Metallic coatings can be produced easily with thermal spray and cold gas spray processes. However, when coating thicknesses below 50 μm are required for economical or technological reasons, the use of these well-established processes becomes more challenging. The company OBZ Innovation GmbH has developed spray processes that can produce metallic coatings with thicknesses of less than 20 μm. Such coatings are of interest for applications such as cold gas sprayed silver coatings with high purity and good electrical conductivity. Thinner sprayed coatings of such valuable materials have economic advantages, and the process may be competitive with commonly used thin film coating methods.