The Fabrication of Porous Porcelain Using Commercially Available Polymeric Sponge Template as Core Materials for Sandwich Structures Fabrication

Abstract

The important of ceramic foam in technological applications initiate the R & D in producing controllable properties of ceramic foam to meet the requirement for emerging applications in environmental and engineering such as catalytic converter, diesel particulate filters, porous biomaterials, solid oxide fuel cell and lightweight core materials for sandwich structures. In this study, ceramic foam with controllable properties has been produced using commercially available polymeric sponges as template materials. SEM observation revealed the microstructure of ceramic foam produced is the replication of template materials and also confirmed the effect of the various solid loadings and template density to the microstructure of porous porcelain. The amount of pores and pore sizes are decreased, the thickness cell wall or struts was increased as solid loading increased. These changes can also be determined by the amount of porosity and density through Archimedes technique. The porosity decreased from 82 to 12% and density increased from 0.40 to 1.99g/cm³ with the ceramic solid loading increased from 20 to 45%. Further evidence can be observed as the flexural strength increases from 0.59 to 14.20 MPa. Ceramic foam with controllable properties was successfully produced using this simple and relatively cheaper fabrication method. The low density of porous porcelain makes it suitable as alternative core materials for sandwich structures construction.