Porous alumina ceramics with unidirectional oriented pores fabricated by ionotropic process of sodium alginate

Alumina ceramic bodies with high porosity characterized by highly ordered and unidirectional oriented pores were successfully fabricated using the ionotropic process of sodium alginate by solvent exchange subsequently with freeze-drying. It is important to point out that the whole process and raw materials are eco-friendly. The average unidirectional pore size of samples sintered at 1500℃ for 2 h is 200 μm with minor porosity in the pore walls with average pore size of 0.3-0.5 μm. The properties of samples can be adjusted by controlling the solid loading in slurry. As the solid loading increasing from 5wt% to 15wt%, the density and compressive strength increased from 0.87 g/cm³ to 1.16 g/cm³ and from (18.9±3.2) MPa to (44.2±5.4) MPa, respectively with permeability decreasing from 2.57×10^-11m² to 2.16×10^-1m². In addition, with the solid loading increasing from 5wt% to 15wt%, the conductivity of the direction parallel and perpendicular to the unidirectional pores increased from 2.1 W/(m·K) to 3.1 W/(m·K) and from 1.3 W/(m·K) to 1.7 W/(m·K), respectively.