Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 27636–27644 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings 2214-7853 © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of 11th Panhellenic Scientific Conference on Chemical Engineering. PSCCE_2017 Fabrication and Characterization of thin Ceramic Films by Spray Pyrolysis A. Krestou a , I. Giozis a , G. Maroulis a , V. Kyriakou b , C. Tsanaktsidis a , and N. E. Kiratzis a ,* a Technological Research Center (TRC) and Department of Environmental and Pollution Control Engineering, Western Macedonia University of Applied Sciences, Kozani 50100, GREECE b Department of Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, GREECE Abstract Results are presented of the application and process parameter optimization of the technique of solution spray pyrolysis for the fabrication of functional films of the type Cu-CeO 2 και La 0.75 Sr 0.25 MnO 3 (LSM) on dense pellets of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The first type of deposited film constitutes a cermet (ceramic-metal composite) that combines the properties of an inert electronic conductor (Cu) and a catalyst while the second is a typical perovskite that exhibits mixed (i.e. ionic and electronic) conductivity. Both types of electrodes find wide use in ceramic fuel cells, gas sensors and catalytic processes. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of 11th Panhellenic Scientific Conference on Chemical Engineering. Keywords: spray pyrolysis;ceramic composites;thin films 1. Introduction Ceramic-metal (cermet) composites and perovskites are frequently used in devices such as solid oxide fuel cells and gas sensors as functional electrodic materials. In these devices, electrode morphology dictates gaseous diffusion rates that affect performance. In particular, the film’s thickness, porosity and tortuosity dictate the values of gaseous effective diffusivities that eventually determine concentration polarization losses in high temperature ceramic fuels * Corresponding author. Tel.: +30-24610-68143; fax: +30-24610-39682. E-mail address: kiratzis@teiwm.gr