PNNL

Abstract

Reactive air brazing (RAB) is a method for joining ceramics with applications in high temperature technologies such as gas separation and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) components. An understanding of wetting behavior is critical for optimization of the brazing process. In the current study, the wetting behavior of Ag-CuO on Al2O3 was evaluated. Based on in-situ contact angle measurements, three regions of wetting behavior were identified in the composition range of 0 to 40 mol% CuO. The first transition, a 20° decrease between 2 mol% CuO and 4 mol% CuO, was attributed to the liquid composition miscibility gap, and the second, a 10° decrease between 10 mol% CuO and 20 mol% CuO, was hypothesized to be dominated by the formation of a reaction product. Small, discontinuous reaction regions were identified via electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) but could not be verified with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis (XPS).