Abstract
An innovative processing route for developing microcellular ceramics has been developed. The strategy for microcellular ceramics is (i) to saturate preceramic polymers using gaseous, liquid, or supercritical CO2, (ii) to nucleate and grow a large number of bubbles using thermodynamic instability via a rapid pressure drop and/or heating, and (iii) to transform the microcellular preceramics into microcellular ceramics by pyrolysis.In this work, we have particularly focused on studying the processing parameter-cell density relationships in the processing of microcellular ceramics. The present results indicate that the proposed novel processing method is suitable for the manufacture of porous ceramics with high uniformity of the cell size, shape, and volume.
