Proceedings of the
World Congress on Micro and Nano Manufacturing (WCMNM 2022 )
19–22 September 2022, Lueven, Belgium
doi:10.3850/978-981-18-5180-3_RP42-0064
Freeze Casting of Silica with Controllable Microporosity
1Department of Mechanical Engineering
2Department of Biomedical Engineering
3Department of Materials Science and Engineering
4Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
ABSTRACT
Ceramics with micropores has advantages that can lead to advancements in various fields. An attractive method for templating microporosity is freeze casting (FC); however, the effects of process parameters on part porosity must be thoroughly understood to enable scalable manufacturing of porous ceramics. In this work, we use unidirectional freeze casting of silica with camphene as the solvent and present an experimental analysis to correlate FC parameters with micropore properties. The effects of process parameters, including solid loading, particle size, cooling temperature, and distance from the cooling surface, on porosity distribution are evaluated. Scanning electron microscopy and image processing of cross-sections are used for microstructure analysis. The quantitative assessment for the silica-camphene system showed solid loading is the most critical process parameter that determines the final porosity and the properties of the microporosity of freeze-cast silica.
Keywords: Freeze Casting, Silica, Camphene, Freeze Front, Directional Microporosity, Lightweight Ceramics.
1Department of Mechanical Engineering
2Department of Biomedical Engineering
3Department of Materials Science and Engineering
4Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
ABSTRACT
Ceramics with micropores has advantages that can lead to advancements in various fields. An attractive method for templating microporosity is freeze casting (FC); however, the effects of process parameters on part porosity must be thoroughly understood to enable scalable manufacturing of porous ceramics. In this work, we use unidirectional freeze casting of silica with camphene as the solvent and present an experimental analysis to correlate FC parameters with micropore properties. The effects of process parameters, including solid loading, particle size, cooling temperature, and distance from the cooling surface, on porosity distribution are evaluated. Scanning electron microscopy and image processing of cross-sections are used for microstructure analysis. The quantitative assessment for the silica-camphene system showed solid loading is the most critical process parameter that determines the final porosity and the properties of the microporosity of freeze-cast silica.
Keywords: Freeze Casting, Silica, Camphene, Freeze Front, Directional Microporosity, Lightweight Ceramics.
