Fabrication and formation mechanism of carbon foam with two-level cell structure

Abstract

A novel method was developed for production of carbon foam with two-level cell structure, which possesses two kinds of cell sizes of about 1μm and 300μm. Results show a carbothermal reduction occurs between the pore wall of first-level foam and the nano-MgO at high temperatures, which results in further bubbling and forming the second-level foam. The carbon foam prepared exhibits a characteristic of pseudoplastic deformation with a relatively compressive strength of 1.72MPa, and possesses a low bulk density of 0.11g/cm3 and a high porosity of 94.2%.