Porous media reinforced with carbon soots

Alumina matrix porous media (composites) can be efficiently reinforced with nanostructured particles of carbon, namely soots. The porous media can be produced a wide range of porosity, conductivity, and hardness. The novelty of this work is the use of carbon byproducts from the synthesis of fullerene and multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The soots contain no more than <1 wt% of the pristine quality product. The porous media are manufactured by mechanical milling, sonication, and Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS). Porosity levels between 0% and 28.6% are possible for the fullerene and MWCNT soots respectively. The porosity and permeability depend on the type and amount of carbon additions. The electrical resistivity in the composites was reduced from 7 to 14 orders of magnitude with the hardness ranging from 2 to 19 GPa for membranes reinforced with fullerene or MWCNT soot respectively. The composites are ideal for membrane applications.