Fabrication of Porous Cu by Freeze-drying Process of Camphene Slurry with CuO-coated Cu Powders

This study reports a simple way of fabricating the porous Cu with unidirectional pore channels by freeze drying camphene slurry with Cu oxide coated Cu powders. The coated powders were prepared by calcination of ball-milled powder mixture of Cu and Cu-nitrate. Improved dispersion stability of camphene slurry could be achieved using the Cu oxide coated Cu powders instead of pure Cu powders. Pores in the frozen specimen at $-25^{\circ}C$ were generated by sublimation of the camphene during drying in air, and the green bodies were sintered at $750^{\circ}C$ for 1 h in $H_2$ atmosphere. XRD analysis revealed that the coated layer of Cu oxide was completely converted to Cu phase without any reaction phases by hydrogen heat treatment. The porous Cu specimen prepared from pure Cu powders showed partly large pores with unidirectional pore channels, but most of pores were randomly distributed. In contrast, large and aligned parallel pores to the camphene growth direction were clearly observed in the sample using Cu oxide coated Cu powders. Pore formation behavior depending on the initial powders was discussed based on the degree of powder rearrangement and dispersion stability in slurry.

CuO가 코팅된 Cu 분말을 혼합한 Camphene 슬러리의 동결건조에 의한 Cu 다공체 제조