Conclusion

A thermally sprayed ceramic solid gasket has been specifically developed to solve a key problem in SOFC technology: the high-temperature sealing of stacks.

This joint is based on a micro-cracked ceramic matrix including a flux phase which migrates through the matrix during heating to fill the gaps between the two parts to be joined, creating a gas-tight barrier.

The material was successfully characterized in terms of both leakage rate and adhesion to its substrate.

It has been commissioned on a four-cell SOFC prototype, which has achieved perfect tightness over several hundred hours.

What's more, thanks to the flexibility of thermal spraying, this material also has great potential for applications involving the assembly of various materials, even on relatively complex geometries.