Wet foam stability and tailoring microstructure of porous ceramics using polymer beads

Abstract

The microstructures of the porous ceramics are improved considerably using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as a pore template since particles tend to adsorb irreversibly at the air-water interface. This paper presents a versatile approach for the production of porous SiO2 ceramics by a process of direct foaming with the addition of PMMA beads. The adsorption free energy of the colloidal suspension was found to be 2.0 × 109 kT. A wet foam stability of >80% was achieved using the surfactant hexylamine (0.05 M), which resulted in a colloidal suspension with the highest surface tension (116.2 mN m− 1).