The High-performance ceramic sponge

The development of science and technology has promoted the development of high-performance and diversified materials. Because of its low density, high porosity, high specific surface area and excellent thermal/chemical stability, ceramic sponge materials have been widely used in thermal insulation and water treatment. Catalyst carrier, filtration and lightweight structural parts.

However, the inherent brittleness and high-temperature volume shrinkage of ceramic materials, as well as the complexity of the preparation process, limit its application. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a simple, low-cost, and conducive to industrialized production method to prepare excellent flexibility. Ceramic sponge material with high compressibility, high and low temperature resistance.

Faced with this extremely challenging task, researchers from Tsinghua University and Peking University, the two largest domestic universities, presented a facile method for large-scale fabrication of highly compressible, temperature resistant SiO₂-Al₂O₃(SAC) composite ceramic sponges by blow spinning and subsequent calcination.

The anisotropic lamellar ceramic sponges with numerous stacked microfiber layers and density as low as 10 mg cm⁻³. The anisotropic lamellar ceramic sponges exhibit high compression fatigue resistance, strain-independent zero Poisson’s ratio, robust fire resistance, temperature-invariant compression resilience from −196 to 1000 °C, and excellent thermal insulation with a thermal conductivity as low as 0.034 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹. In addition, the lamellar structure also endows the ceramic sponges with excellent sound absorption properties, representing a promising alternative to existing thermal insulation and acoustic absorption materials.

Reference: Jia, C., Li, L., Liu, Y. et al. Highly compressible and anisotropic lamellar ceramic sponges with superior thermal insulation and acoustic absorption performances. Nat Commun 11, 3732 (2020).DOI: 10.1038/s41467 -020-17533-6