Preparation and characterization of ceramic foam produced via polymeric foam replication method

Ceramic foam are a class of high porosity materials that are used for a wide range of technological applications. In this study, ceramic foam was produced by polymeric sponge replication method. In this process, commercial polymeric foam was used as template and dipped into ceramic slurry followed by drying and sintering to yield a replica of the original polymeric foam. The study was focused on the fabrication of different density of ceramic foam by varying the density of ceramic slurries (1.1876, 1.2687, 1.3653 and 1.5295 g/cm3). Physical properties of ceramic foam produced such as density was characterized according to ASTM C 271-94 whereas porosity was characterized using Archimedes method. Bending and compressive strengths were determined following the ASTM C1161-94 and C773-88 (1999), respectively. The morphological study was performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). From the results, it was found that the density of ceramic foam produced was in the range of 0.5588–1.1852 g/cm3, whereas the level of porosity was in the range of 26.28 and 70.59%. Compressive and bending strengths were found to increase from 2.60 to 23.07 MPa and 1.20 to 11.10 MPa, respectively, with the increasing of slurries density from 1.1876 to 1.3653 g/cm3. The SEM micrographs showed that the cells structure become denser as the slurries density increases. Elemental analysis from EDX proved that the ceramic used is porcelain and the polymeric foam was decomposed after sintering process.