The effects of composition and sintering temperature on the silica foam fabricated by slurry method

Reticulated ceramic or open pore ceramic foam is a well-known material which exhibits extremely high porosities, with a significant degree of interconnectivity that makes them desirable in a wide range of applications. There were broad types of ceramic foam fabrication method such as polymeric sponge method, direct foaming, and starch consolidation. In this study, the slurry method has been chosen to fabricate Silica (SiO2) foam. In this process, Polyurethane (PU) foam template was dipped into ceramic slurry and followed by drying and sintering to obtain foam which contains porosity in the range of 50% to 70%. The compositions of SiO2 were varied starting from 55 wt.%, 60 wt.%, 65 wt.% and 70 wt.%. The samples of SiO2 that have been dipped and dried were sintered at 900°C, 1000°C, 1100°C, and 1250°C. The sintered SiO2 ceramic foam samples were characterized to observe their morphology, and physical properties. Thus, the microstructure of the SiO2 ceramic foams samples was examined by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Electron Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). Meanwhile, the physical properties of the SiO2 ceramic foam samples such as the total porosity (%) and bulk density were determined using Archimedes method. It was found that the density of ceramic foam produced was in the range of 0.25 g/cm3 up to 0.75 g/cm3, whereas the level of porosity percentage was in the range of 61.81% to 82.18% with the size of open pore or window cells were in between 141 µm up to 626 µm.