Well done to the researchers of our project partner École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne recently published a paper acknowledging Hy-SPIRE Project!
The paper is entitled Inkjet Printing Towards Dense Spinel Protective Coatings for Solid Oxide Cell (SOC) Applications and has been published in Open Access on the Journal of the American Ceramic Society!
Abstract
This study aimed to develop a dense protective coating of Mn1.7Cu1.3O4 spinel on SOC interconnects using inkjet printing. The work focused on formulating a well-dispersed, stable, and agglomerate-free ink to obtain a dense, uniform, and full surface coating layer. Achieving a dense layer, requires an ink with high powder content. However, highly loaded inks increase the risk of agglomeration and nozzle blocking. This makes the colloidal stability and dispersion properties critical.
Mn1.7Cu1.3O4 colloids were formulated in water using polyacrylic acid (PAA) as the dispersant. The PAA concentration was optimized through sedimentation tests and rheological analyses, both directly linked to colloidal stability. Isopropanol and propylene glycol were added to adjust ink properties for jettability. Interparticle interactions were modeled to understand the stability mechanism, focusing on the effects of particle size and pH for the aqueous PAA-spinel system. The optimal PAA concentration for a specific solvent mixture was found as 0.4–0.6 vol% with the particle loading up to 20 vol%.
Dense protective coatings were successfully obtained after sintering at using the optimized mixture. Corrosion ageing tests by monitoring the area specific resistance (ASR), with post-test SEM/EDX analysis confirmed that the more optimized ink resulted in better corrosion protectiveness.sealing geometry that prevents a potential gas crossover in the symmetrical proton-conducting ceramic cell.
Cite this article
S.Daviran, J.Van herle, and P.Bowen, “Inkjet Printing Towards Dense Spinel Protective Coatings for Solid Oxide Cell (SOC) Applications.” Journal of the American Ceramic Society109, no. 3 (2026): e70654. https://doi.org/10.1111/jace.70654
Read the article in Open Access at this link or find it on our “Results” web page: https://hy-spire.eu/results/
