Alumina ceramics prepared with new pore-forming agents

Abstract

Porous ceramics have a wide range of applications at all length scales, ranging from filtration membranes and catalyst supports to biomaterials (scaffolds for bone ingrowths) and thermally or acoustically insulating bulk materials or coating layers. Organic pore-forming agents (PFAs) of biological origin can be used to control porosity, pore size and pore shape. This work concerns the characterization and testing of several less common pore-forming agents (lycopodium, coffee, fl our and semolina, poppy seed), which are of potential interest from the viewpoint of size, shape or availability. The performance of these new PFAs is compared to that of starch, which has become a rather popular PFA for ceramics during the last decade. The PFAs investigated in this work are in the size range from 5 ?m (rice starch) to approximately 1 mm (poppy seed), all with more or less isometric shape. The burnout behavior of PFAs is studied by thermal analysis, i.e. thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis. For the preparation of porous alumina ceramics from alumina suspensions containing PFAs traditional slip casting (into plaster molds) and starch consolidation casting (using metal molds) are used in this work. The resulting microstructures are investigated using optical microscopy, combined with image analysis, as well as other methods (Archimedes method of double-weighing in water, mercury intrusion porosimetry).