Fabrication of lightweight and porous silicon carbide foams as excellent microwave susceptor for heat generation

Abstract

Lightweight and porous silicon carbide (SiC) foams due to its outstanding properties have attracted attention by many researchers and industries and are a well-studied material for microwave absorption. In this paper, SiC foam has been synthesized from the reaction of phenolic resin and silicon powder by replica method using polyurethane (PU) foam followed by heat treatment (sintering) at a higher temperature for formation into SiC. SiC foams were also modified by incorporating different microwave absorbing additives such as ZrO2, Fe3O4, and NiO. Further, SiC foams were also modified with SiC nanofibers by the sol-gel process. All SiC foams including as such and modified with additives were studied probably for time for generation of heat by self-heating properties on radiating the samples under microwave of frequency 2.45 GHz in a furnace. The ZrO2–SiC foam modified with SiC nanofibers was found to be the best sample and exhibited a temperature of 1130 °C in 480 s.