Investigation on Wettability Behaviour of Electrode Coatings using Silica-based SiO<inf>2</inf>-CaO-CaF<inf>2</inf> and ZrO<inf>2</inf>-CaO-SiO<inf>2</inf> Flux System

This paper aims to investigate the high-temperature wettability properties of laboratory-developed electrode coatings for offshore applications. The basic flux systems SiO2-CaO-CaF2 and ZrO2-CaO-SiO2 were used to prepare the coatings. To create 27 coating compositions, an extreme vertices design method was used. The contact angle, spread area, surface tension, and adhesion work of the molten flux have all been measured. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy techniques were used to analyze the structural properties of a flux mixture. Young's and Boni's equations computed different surface tension values for the SiO2-CaO-CaF2 and ZrO2-CaO-SiO2 flux systems. Moreover, Dupre's equation estimated the adhesion energy for twenty-seven fundamental fluxes. The effects of individual components and their binary and ternary interactions on wettability characteristics were assessed using regression analysis. SiO2 and CaF2 have an increasing influence on the contact angle while CaO and ZrO2 have a reducing effect when interacting individually. The spread area is increased by the binary interaction of CaO.ZrO2, CaO.SiO2, CaO.CaF2, and SiO2.CaF2, while being decreased by ZrO2.SiO2 and ZrO2.CaF2. The surface tension property is synergistically affected by individual components CaO, ZrO2, SiO2, and CaF2. Adhesion energy indicates that individual components have a decreasing effect, while binary interaction has an increasing effect and ternary interaction has a decreasing effect on adhesion energy.