Aligned continuous cylindrical pores derived from electrospun polymer fibers in titanium diboride

Abstract

The use of electrospun polystyrene (PS) fibers to create continuous long range ordered multi-scale porous structures in titanium diboride (TiB 2 ) is investigated in this work. The introduction of electrospun PS fibers as a sacrificial filler into a colloidal suspension of TiB 2 allows for easy control over the pore size, porosity, and long range ordering of the porous structures of the sintered ceramics. Green bodies were formed by vacuum infiltrating an electrospun-fiber-filled mold with the colloidal TiB 2 suspension.The size, volume, distribution, and dispersion of the pores were optimized by carefully selecting the sacrificial polymer, the fiber diameter, the solvent, and the solid content of TiB 2 . The green bodies were partially sintered at 2000°C to form a multi-scale porous structure via the removal of the PS fibers. Aligned continuous cylindrical pores homogeneously distributed across the samples were derived from the PS fibers in a range of~5-20 μm and partial sintering produced inter-particle porosity with sizes of 0.3-1 μm. TiB 2 near-net-shaped parts with the multi-scale porosities (~50-70%) were successfully cast and sintered. This low-cost processing technique can be used in the production of thermally and mechanically anisotropic structures into near-net shape parts, for extreme environment applications, such as high temperature insulation. K E Y W O R D Saligned continuous porosity, multi-scale porosity, processing, titanium diboride

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