Morphological Analysis of Silica-Nickel Oxide Foam Fabricated by Replication Method

Abstract

Foam materials are very light, but compared with bulk materials, their strength is quite low because of their random structures. Natural lightweight materials such as bone, is a cellular solid with optimized structure. In this research, silica-nickel oxide (SiO2-NiO) foams were fabricated by a well-known method which is replication method. The compositions of SiO2-NiO foams consist of 55 wt.% of silica (SiO2) powder and 10 wt.% of nickel oxide (NiO) powder. SiO2 and NiO powders were mixed together with binders; polyethylene glycol (PEG) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to prepare slurry solution for replication of polyurethane (PU) sponge which functioned as the template. 10 wt.% of SiO2-NiO foams sintered at different temperatures; 1000 °C, 1100 °C, 1200 °C and 1300 °C. Morphology of 10 wt.% of SiO2-NiO foams such as the structure of foams and particles distribution were studied by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).