Macro-porous carbon foams are fabricated using cured spherical phenolic resin particles as a matrix and furfuryl alcohol as a binder through a simple casting molding. Different sizes of the phenolic resin particles from 100– 450 μm are used to control the pore size and structure. Ethylene glycol is additionally added as a pore-forming agent and oxalic acid is used as an initiator for polymerization of furfuryl alcohol. The polymerization is performed in two steps; at 80oC and 200oC in an ambient atmosphere. The carbonization of the cured body is performed under Nitrogen gas flow (0.8 L/min) at 800oC for 1 h. Shrinkage rate and residual carbon content are measured by size and weight change after carbonization. The pore structures are observed by both electron and optical microscope and compared with the porosity results achieved by the Archimedes method. The porosity is similar regardless of the size of the phenolic resin particles. On the other hand, the pore size increases in proportion to the phenol resin size, which indicates that the pore structure can be controlled by changing the raw material particle size.

Porous metals demonstrate not only excessively low densities, but also novel physical, thermal, mechanical, electrical, and acoustic properties. Thus, porous metals exhibit exceptional performance, which are useful for diesel particulate filters, heat exchangers, and noise absorbers. In this study, SUS316L foam with 90% porosity and 3,000 μm pore size is successfully manufactured using the electrostatic powder coating (ESPC) process. The mean size of SUS316L powders is approximately 12.33 μm. The pore properties are evaluated using SEM and Archimedes. As the quantity of powder coating increases, pore size decreases from 2,881 to 1,356 μm. Moreover, the strut thickness and apparent density increase from 423.7 to 898.3 μm and from 0.278 to 0.840 g/cm3, respectively. It demonstrates that pore properties of SUS316L powder porous metal are controllable by template type and quantity of powder coating.

Porous W-10 wt% Ti alloys are prepared by freeze-drying a WO3-TiH2/camphene slurry, using a sintering process. X-ray diffraction analysis of the heat-treated powder in an argon atmosphere shows the WO3 peak of the starting powder and reaction-phase peaks such as WO2.9, WO2, and TiO2 peaks. In contrast, a powder mixture heated in a hydrogen atmosphere is composed of the W and TiW phases. The formation of reaction phases that are dependent on the atmosphere is explained by a thermodynamic consideration of the reduction behavior of WO3 and the dehydrogenation reaction of TiH2. To fabricate a porous W-Ti alloy, the camphene slurry is frozen at -30℃, and pores are generated in the frozen specimens by the sublimation of camphene while drying in air. The green body is hydrogen-reduced and sintered at 1000℃ for 1 h. The sintered sample prepared by freeze-drying the camphene slurry shows large and aligned parallel pores in the camphene growth direction, and small pores in the internal walls of the large pores. The strut between large pores consists of very fine particles with partial necking between them.

Porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) thin films are fabricated by spin-coating using a dispersion solution containing PTFE powders, and their crystalline properties are investigated after thermal annealing at various temperatures ranging from 300 to 500°C. Before thermal annealing, the film is densely packed and consists of many granular particles 200-300 nm in diameter. However, after thermal annealing, the film contains many voids and fibrous grains on the surface. In addition, the film thickness decreases after thermal annealing owing to evaporation of the surfactant, binder, and solvent composing the PTFE dispersion solution. The film thickness is systematically controlled from 2 to 6.5 μm by decreasing the spin speed from 1,500 to 500 rpm. A triboelectric nanogenerator is fabricated by spin-coating PTFE thin films onto polished Cu foils, where they act as an active layer to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy. A triboelectric nanogenerator consisting of a PTFE layer and Al metal foil pair shows typical output characteristics, exhibiting positive and negative peaks during applied strain and relief cycles due to charging and discharging of electrical charge carriers. Further, the voltage and current outputs increase with increasing strain cycle owing to accumulation of electrical charge carriers during charge-discharge.

Porous W with controlled pore structure was fabricated by thermal decomposition and hydrogen reduction process of PMMA beads and WO3 powder compacts. The PMMA sizes of 8 and 50 μm were used as pore forming agent for fabricating the porous W. The WO3 powder compacts with 20 and 70 vol% PMMA were prepared by uniaxial pressing and sintered for 2 h at 1200oC in hydrogen atmosphere. TGA analysis revealed that the PMMA was decomposed at about 400oC and WO3 was reduced to metallic W at 800oC. Large pores in the sintered specimens were formed by thermal decomposition of spherical PMMA, and their size was increased with increase in PMMA size and the amount of PMMA addition. Also the pore shape was changed from spherical to irregular form with increasing PMMA contents due to the agglomeration of PMMA in the powder mixing process.

This study investigated the microstructure and tensile properties of a recently made block-type Ni-Cr-Al powder porous material. The block-type powder porous material was made by stacking multiple layers of powder porous thin plates with post-processing such as additional compression and sintering. This study used block-type powder porous materials with two different cell sizes: one with an average cell size of 1,200 μm (1200 foam) and the other with an average cell size of 3,000 μm (3000 foam). The γ-Ni and γ’-Ni3Al were identified as the main phases of both materials. However, in the case of the 1,200 foam, a β-NiAl phase was additionally observed. The relative density of each block-type powder porous material, with 1200 foam and 3000 foam, was measured to be 5.78% and 2.93%, respectively. Tensile tests were conducted with strain rates of 10−2~10−4 sec−1. The test result showed that the tensile strength of the 1,200 foam was 6.0~7.1 MPa, and that of 3,000 foam was 3.0~3.3 MPa. The elongation of the 3,000 foam was higher (~9%) than that (~2%) of the 1,200 foam. This study also discussed the deformation behavior of block-type powder porous material through observations of the fracture surface, with the results above.

Fe-Cr-Al powder porous metal was manufactured by using new electro-spray process. First, ultra-finefecralloy powders were produced by using the submerged electric wire explosion process. Evenly distributed colloid(0.05~0.5% powders) was dispersed on Polyurethane foam through the electro-spray process. And then degreasing andsintering processes were conduced. In order to examine the effect of cell size (200 µm, 450 µm, 500 µm) in process,pre-samples were sintered for two hours at temperature of 1450˚C, in H₂ atmospheres. A 24-hour thermo gravimetricanalysis test was conducted at 1000˚C in a 79% N₂ + 21% O₂ to investigate the high temperature oxidation behavior ofpowder porous metal. The results of the high temperature oxidation tests showed that oxidation resistance increased withincreasing cell size. In the 200 µm porous metal with a thinner strut and larger specific surface area, the depletion ofthe stabilizing elements such as Al and Cr occurred more quickly during the high-temperature oxidation compared withthe 450, 500 µm porous metals.

Cu-Ni alloys with unidirectionally aligned pores were prepared by freeze-drying process of CuO-NiO/cam-phene slurry. Camphene slurries with dispersion stability by the addition of oligomeric polyester were frozen at -25˚C,and pores in the frozen specimens were generated by sublimation of the camphene during drying in air. The green bod-ies were hydrogen-reduced at 300˚C and sintered at 850˚C for 1h. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that CuO-NiOcomposite powders were completely converted to Cu-Ni alloy without any reaction phases by hydrogen reduction. Thesintered samples showed large and aligned parallel pores to the camphene growth direction, and small pores in the inter-nal wall of large pores. The pore size and porosity decreased with increase in CuO-NiO content from 5 to 10 vol%.The change of pore characteristics was explained by the degree of powder rearrangement in slurry and the accumulationbehavior of powders in the interdendritic spaces of solidified camphene.

A new manufacturing process of Fe-Cr-Al powder porous metal was attempted. First, ultra-fine fecralloy powders were produced by using the submerged electric wire explosion process. Evenly distributed colloid (0.05~0.5% powders) was dispersed on PU (Polyurethane) foam through the electrospray process. And then degreasing and sintering processes were conduced. In order to examine the effect of sintering temperature in process, pre-samples were sintered for two hours at temperatures of , , , and , respectively, in atmospheres. A 24-hour TGA (thermo gravimetric analysis) test was conducted at in a 79% +21% to investigate the high temperature oxidation behavior of powder porous metal. The results of the high temperature oxidation tests showed that oxidation resistance increased with increasing sintering temperature (2.57% oxidation weight gain at sintered specimen). The high temperature oxidation mechanism of newly manufactured Fe-Cr-Al powder porous metal was also discussed.

Dependence of the freeze-drying process condition on microstructure of porous W and pore formation mechanism were studied. Camphene slurries with contents of 10 vol% were prepared by milling at with a small amount of dispersant. Freezing of a slurry was done in Teflon cylinder attached to a copper bottom plate cooled at . Pores were generated subsequently by sublimation of the camphene during drying in air for 48 h. The green body was hydrogen-reduced at for 30 min, and sintered in the furnace at for 1 h. After heat treatment in hydrogen atmosphere, powders were completely converted to metallic W without any reaction phases. The sintered samples showed large pores with the size of about which were aligned parallel to the camphene growth direction. Also, the internal wall of large pores and near bottom part of specimen had relatively small pores with dendritic structure due to the growth of camphene dendrite depending on the degree of nucleation and powder rearrangement in the slurry.

Micro-porous nickel (Ni) with an open cell structure was fabricated by powder metallurgy. The pore size of the micro-porous Ni approximated and . For comparison, porous Ni with a macro-porous structure were also prepared by both powder metallurgy (pore size ) and the traditional chemical vapour deposition method (pore size ). The mechanical properties of the micro-and macro-porous Ni samples were evaluated using compressive tests. Results indicate that the micro-porous Ni samples exhibited significantly enhanced mechanical properties, compared to those of the macro-porous Ni samples.

Using microwave synthesized HAp nano powder and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as a pore-forming agent, the porous biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) ceramics were fabricated depending on the sintering temperature. The synthesized HAp powders was about 70-90 nm in diameter. In the porous sintered bodies, the pores having were homogeneously dispersed in the BCP matrix. Some amounts of pores interconnected due the necking of PMMA powders which will increase the osteoconductivity and ingrowth of bone-tissues while using as a bone substrate. As the sintering temperature increased, the relative density increased and showed the maximum value of 79.6%. From the SBF experiment, the maximum resorption of ion was observed in the sample sintered at .

A novel production method for porous metal components has been developed by applying powder space holder (PSH) method to metal powder injection molding (MIM) process. The PSH-MIM method has an industrial competitive advantage that is capable of net-shape manufacturing the micro-sized porous metal products with complicated shapes and controlled porosity and pore size. In this study, the small impeller with homogeneous micro-porous structure was manufactured by the PSH-MIM method. The effects of combinations in size and fraction of PMMA particle on dimensional tolerance and variation of sintered porous specimens were investigated. It was concluded that the PSH-MIM method could manufacture commercially microporous metal components with high dimensional accuracy.

Silica hydrogel was synthesized by the reaction of liquid sodium silicate with sulfuric acid. The condensation polymerization of the synthesized hydrogel was carried out via an aging process under the acidic or alkaline conditions. Nano porous silica with the pore size below 3 nm and surface area of , was obtained by the above processes in acidic ranges(pH : 3~5). The pore size and surface area of the silica varied with pH, and in alkaline ranges(pH : 8~10), those were 21 nm and respectively. The characteristics of the silica varied with the thermal treatment which caused the change of surface area, pore volume and pore diameter.