Fabrication of SiC Porous Ceramics by Foaming Method

Abstract

In this work, hierarchically porous SiC ceramics were prepared via the foaming method. Porous ceramics with tunable, uniform, and bimodal pore structures were successfully fabricated in a facile way. The formation mechanisms of the 1st and 2nd modal macropores are the H2O2 foaming process and SiC particle overlap, respectively. The effect of pore-foaming agent amount, foaming temperature, and surfactant was investigated. According to the results, with increasing H2O2 amount, the porosity, pore size, and interconnectivity of the 1st modal pores increased, whereas bulk density and strength decreased. The porosity increased while the strength decreased as the foaming temperature increased. Surfactants increased pore interconnectivity and porosity. When the foaming temperature was 85 °C, and the addition of H2O2 was 5 wt.%, the porosity, bulk density, flexural strength, and compressive strength were 56.32%, 2.8301 g/cm3, 11.94 MPa, and 24.32 MPa, respectively. Moreover, SiC porous ceramics exhibited excellent corrosion resistance to acids and alkalis.

Keywords

• SiC
• porous ceramics
• foaming
• hierarchical
• porosity
• mechanical properties