Biomass porous carbons derived from Laminaria japonica were prepared by KOH and H3PO4 activation methods, respectively. The results indicated that the chemical activation had an apparent effect on the molecular framework and space of materials. To enhance the selective adsorption for organic acids, biomass carbons were modified by dopamine combined with N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane. The SEM and BET results illustrated the effect of the chemical activation approach on the morphology and porous texture. The biomass porous carbon using KOH activation method had the highest surface area (up to 1558 m2/ g). Compared with unmodified materials, the modified materials showed higher adsorption capacity for organic acids (27.90 μg/mL for chlorogenic acid and 25.47 μg/mL for caffeic acid). It was suggested that modification of porous carbons might be a viable pathway to increase the specific adsorption affinity and efficiency for organic acids in dried jujube samples.

Silicon alloys are considered promising anode active materials to replace Li-ion batteries by graphite powder, because they have a relatively high capacity of up to 4200 mAh/g, and are environmentally friendly and inexpensive ECO-materials. However, its poor charge/discharge properties, induced by cracking during cycles, constitute their most serious problem as anode electrode. In order to solve these problems, Si-Ge-Al alloys with porous structure are designed as anode alloy powders, to improve cycling stability. The alloys are melt-spun to obtain the rapidly solidified ribbons, and then ball-milled to make fine powders. The powders are etched using 1 M HCl solution, which gives the powders a porous structure by removing the element Al. Subsequently, in this study, the microstructures and the characteristics of the etched powders are evaluated for application as anode materials. As a result, the etched porous powder shows better electrochemical properties than as-milled Si-Ge-Al powder.

HA (hydroxyapatite)/β-TCP (tricalcium phosphate) biomaterial (BCP; biphasic calcium phosphate) is widely used as bone cement or scaffolds material due to its superior biocompatibility. Furthermore, NH4HCO3 as a space holder (SH) has been used to evaluate feasibility assessment of porous structured BCP as bone scaffolds. In this study, using a spark plasma sintering (SPS) process at 393K and 1373K under 20MPa load, porous HA/β-TCP biomaterials were successfully fabricated using HA/β-TCP powders with 10~30 wt% SH, TiH2 as a foaming agent, and MgO powder as a binder. The effect of SH content on the pore size and distribution of the BCP biomaterial was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and a microfocus X-ray computer tomography system (SMX-225CT). The microstructure observations revealed that the volume fraction of the pores increased with increasing SH content and that rough pores were successfully fabricated by adding SH. Accordingly, the cell viabilities of BCP biomaterials were improved with increasing SH content. And, good biological properties were shown after assessment using Hanks balanced salt solution (HBSS).

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.

Porous Al2O3 dispersed with nano-sized Cu was fabricated by freeze-drying process and solution chemistry method using Cu-nitrate. To prepare porous Al2O3, camphene was used as the sublimable vehicle. Camphene slurries with Al2O3 content of 10 vol% were prepared by milling at 50˚C with a small amount of oligomeric polyester dispersant. Freezing of the slurry was done in a Teflon cylinder attached to a copper bottom plate cooled to -25˚C while unidirectionally controlling the growth direction of the camphene. Pores were subsequently generated by sublimation of the camphene during drying in air for 48 h. The green body was sintered in a furnace at 1400˚C for 1 h. Cu particles were dispersed in porous Al2O3 by calcination and hydrogen reduction of Cu-nitrate. The sintered samples showed large pores with sizes of about 150μm; these pores were aligned parallel to the camphene growth direction. Also, the internal walls of the large pores had relatively small pores due to the traces of camphene left between the concentrated Al2O3 particles on the internal wall. EDS analysis revealed that the Cu particles were mainly dispersed on the surfaces of the large pores. These results strongly suggest that porous Al2O3 with Cu dispersion can be successfully fabricated by freeze-drying and solution chemistry routes.

In this study, a novel-processing route for fabricating microcellular zirconia ceramics has been developed. The proposed strategy for making the microcellula zirconia ceramics involved hollow microspheres as pore former. Compared to conventional dense microspheres pore former, well-defined pore structured zirconia ceramics were successfully fabricated. Effects of hollow microsphere content and sintering temperature on microstructure, porosity, pore distribution, and strength were investigated in the processing of microcellular zirconia ceramics.

As a pore precursor, carbon black with different content of 0 to 60 vol% were added to (Ba,Sr) powder. Porous (Ba,Sr) ceramics were prepared by pressureless sintering at for 1h under air. Effects of carbon black content on the microstructure and PTCR characteristics of porous (Ba,Sr) ceramics were investigated. The porosity of porous (Ba,Sr) ceramics increased from 6.97% to 18.22% and the grain size slightly decreased from to with increasing carbon black contents. PTCR jump of the (Ba,Sr) ceramics prepared by adding carbon black was more than , and slightly increased with increasing carbon black. The PTCR jump in the (Ba,Sr) ceramics prepared by adding 40 vol% carbon black showed an excellent value of , which was above two times higher than that in (Ba,Sr) ceramics. These results correspond with Heywang model for the explanation of PTCR effect in (Ba,Sr) ceramics. It was considered that carbon black is an effective additive for preparing porous based ceramics. It is believed that newly prepared (Ba,Sr) cermics can be used for PTC thermistor.

Using as sintering additives and Si as a raw powder, the continuously porous in-situ bodies were fabricated by multi-pass extrusion process and their microstructures were investigated depending on the addition of carbon (0-9wt%) in the mixture powder. The introduction of fibers observed in the unidirectional continuous pores as well as in the pore-frame regions of the nitrided bodies can be an effective method in increasing the filtration efficiency. In the case of no carbon addition, the network type fibers with high aspect ratio appeared in the continuous pores with diameters of 150-200 nm. However, in the case of 9wt% C addition, the fibers were found without any network type and had diameters of 200-250 nm.