Cellular mullite materials processed by direct foaming and protein casting

M. L SANDOVAL; L. RAMAJO; M. A. CAMERUCCI

JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN CERAMIC SOCIETY

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2019 vol. 39 p. 2472 - 2483

0955-2219

In this paper, cellular mullite bodies were developed by thermal direct-consolidation of foamed aqueous mullitebovineserum albumin (BSA) and mullite-BSA-methylcellulose suspensions, burning out (650 °C, 2 h) and sintering(1600 °C, 2 h). Some modifications to the shaping route conventionally used in protein casting wereincorporated in the proposed processing to obtain bodies with controlled and homogeneous microstructures. Thematerials were characterized by porosity measurements, analysis of phases by XRD, and microstructural analysisby SEM and Hg-porosimetry. Characteristic parameters of cell size distributions, percentage of open and closedcells, window size and interstitial pore size distributions, and microstructural features of the mullite matrix weredetermined. Moreover, basic 2D cell size parameters and global 3D stereological parameters were analysed. Theobtained results showed that mullite bodies with hierarchical porosity and different microstructural featureswere developed from the design and control of processing routes, which use BSA as a foaming and binder/consolidator agent.