Introduction of the Polymer Compatibility Factor for Preparation of Pitch-Based Carbon Foams by Polymer-Assisted Template Foaming

Abstract

Preparation of coal tar pitch-based carbon foams has been attempted through a polymer-assisted sacrificial template method. The polymer helped in ensuring maximum impregnation of the foaming precursor in the template. The polymer compatibility factor has been introduced to study the compatibility of different polymers with the precursor. It is a very crucial parameter that can serve as a quantitative and qualitative indicator in the field of polymer-assisted template foaming. The result shows that a precursor particle size of 100 μm or less is suitable for foaming. Polyvinyl alcohol seems to be the most compatible polymer for polymer-assisted template foaming. A lower polymer concentration of 3 wt % is optimum for ensuring the highest compatibility factor of 0.49 and maximum compressive strength of the resultant foam. The final carbon foam obtained by this method exhibited a bulk density of 0.24 g/cc and a compressive strength of 4.23 MPa.