Ice-templated porous silicate cement with hierarchical porosity

Abstract Hierarchical porous silicate cements with lamellar/dendritic morphology were prepared by combination of ice-templating and hydration reaction routes. The macropores with multimodal pore distributions are found to be interconnected through intrinsic mesopores resulting from ice crystals growth and hydration products generation. As the slurry concentration increased from 40 to 60 wt%, the BET surface area decreased from 86.744 m 2  g −1 to 70.707 m 2  g −1 , the porosity decreased from 61.8% to 47.62%, whilst the compressive strength increased from 10.76 Mpa to 16.67 Mpa. Low-cost starting material and eco-friendly technique probably endow ordered porous cement with potential in a variety of applications including membrane separation and adsorption process.