Sintering of porous alumina obtained by biotemplate fibers for low thermal conductivity applications

Abstract In this research report, a sintering process of porous ceramic materials based on Al 2 O 3 was employed using a method where a cation precursor solution is embedded in an organic fibrous cotton matrix. For porous green bodies, the precursor solution and cotton were annealed at temperatures in the range of 100–1600 °C using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermogravimetric (TG) analysis to obtain a porous body formation and disposal process containing organic fibers and precursor solution. In a structure consisting of open pores and interconnected nanometric grains, despite the low porosity of around 40% (calculated geometrically), nitrogen physisorption determined a specific surface area of 14 m 2 /g, which shows much sintering of porous bodies. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analytical methods revealed a predominant amount of α-Al 2 O 3 in the sintered samples. Thermal properties of the sintered Al 2 O 3 fibers were obtained by using the Laser Flash which resulted in the lower thermal conductivity obtained by α-Al 2 O 3 and therefore improved its potential use as an insulating material.