Silicide coatings applications

Satellite thruster combustion chambers manufactured by EADS Space Transportation are machined from massive Pt based alloys, which are capable of operating at about 1600°C in continuous mode. Main inconvenient of such chambers is the elevated raw material cost of about 30 /gr. Other qualified materials for the application are silicide coated Nb,... 

Silicon is highly unstable in aqueous electrolytes due to the formation of an insulating oxide film which prevents the use of n-Si as photoanode. On the other hand, the silicon electrode has poor kinetics for hydrogen evolution which is not desirable for its use as a photocathode. Many methods have been explored to stabilize Si electrodes in aqueous solutions for possible applications as photochemical cells. They include coating the surface with noble metals, metal oxides, metal silicides, or organic materials as shown in Table 6.6. Also, some redox species, the reduction of which can favorably compete with the oxidation of silicon, can be used to stabilize silicon anodes... 

Other applications are wear resistant coatings and thin layers for diverse electronic and surface engineering purposes. The main disadvantage of the silicides is their intrinsic brittleness at room temperature up to the brittle-ductile transition at temperatures of 700 °C to 900 °C. However,... 

The refractory metal silicides have been used for many years to protect refractory metals from oxidation in very high temperature, but short duration applications [121], These coatings have been highly successful but their use in applications which require long term stability have been limited by problems with accelerated oxidation and... 

Hard materials are used as thin hard coatings of some microns thickness for wear protection of tools and machine parts because of their high abrasive wear resistance. For the selection of the coating material the physical, mechanical, and technological properites of these coatings, required by the application, are decisive. The following data collection presents fundamental and available material properties for approximately 130 hard materials as a result of a literature search on carbides, nitrides, borides, silicides, and oxides. 

Technologies for application of coatings like PyC, SiC, silicide based coatings... 

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