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86

Current Nanoscience, 2014, 10, 86-88

A Novel Method for Fabricating Fe-Cr-Al Open-cell Metallic and Alloyed Foams
Luong-Huu Baca,b, Byoung-Kee Kima and Young-Min Konga*
a

School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749, Republic of Korea; bSchool of Engineering Physics, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Viet Nam
Abstract: A new fabrication process for generating open-cell metallic and alloyed foams was developed by combining electrical explosion of wire (EEW) and electrospray (ESP) techniques. Fe-Cr-Al alloy nano-powders prepared by EEW in ethanol were used as a starting
material, and commercial polyurethane (PU) sponges were used as templates. Fe-Cr-Al foams were successfully fabricated with porosities greater than 90%. The porosity of the fabricated foams was controlled by spraying time during the ESP process. As spraying time increased from 1 to 5 h, porosity decreased from 97 to 90%. The sintered foam possessed a continuous open-cell structure, which was dependent on the structure of the PU template. The proposed method may be useful in the future as a simple means to fabricate open-cell
porous materials.

Keywords: Electrical Explosion of Wire (EEW), Electrospray (ESP), Foams, Metallic and alloyed, Open-cell, Porous materials.
INTRODUCTION
Owing to their excellent physical and mechanical properties,
metallic and alloyed foams have found a variety of applications
such as lightweight structural materials, impacting energy absorbers, sound absorption, heat exchangers, diesel particulate filters
(DPF) or catalyzed soot filter (CSF), and biomedical implants [14]. Such foams are categorized as either closed or open-cell, depending on the connectivity of cells. Open-cell foams contain pores
that connect to the surface from the opposite side, whereas closedcell foams contain pores that are isolated from the surface of the
foam. Closed-cell foams have a higher degree of strength than
open-cell foams, and are used mainly as thermal insulators or structural components. Conversely, open-cell foams are necessary for a
large number of industrial applications such as filtration, separation,
heat/mass exchange, and sound/energy absorption.
To date, a number of methods for fabricating open-cell metallic
foams have been demonstrated, including powder sintering [5],
rapid prototyping [6], replication [7], and deposition techniques [810]. Among them, deposition techniques have been successfully
applied to fabricate highly uniform open-cell metallic foams with
low density, high porosity, high specific surface area, and good
interconnection of cells, properties that are highly desirable for top
quality porous materials. In the deposition technique, metal atoms
are deposited on the surface of polymeric template foam and removed by thermal decomposition, resulting in the desired metallic
foam. In addition, sputter deposition, electro-deposition, vacuum
evaporation plating, evaporation, and chemical vapor deposition are
common methods currently in use. However, these methods have
limitations, including their production requirements for high vacuum conditions and/or toxic chemicals.
To the best of our knowledge, ESP deposition [11] has not been
previously applied in the fabrication of metallic foam. In the present
study, we present a combination method for synthesizing nanoparticles by EEW, and subsequently fabricating metallic foams by ESP
deposition of nanoparticles on polymeric foam. This method is
more economic and simple than other deposition techniques, as it
does not require the use of toxic chemicals ora vacuum system.
*Address correspondence to this author at the 18-415, School of Materials
Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749, Republic of
Korea; Tel: +82-52-259-2240; Fax: + 82-52-259-1688;
E-mail: longmin2@ulsan.ac.kr

1875-6786/14 $58.00+.00

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Commercial 72.2Fe-22Cr-5.8Al wire with a diameter of
0.2 mm was used to fabricate nanoparticles by EEW in ethanol. A
description of the fabrication of Fe-Cr-Al nanoparticles by EEW in
liquid can be found elsewhere [12-13]. Fabricated Fe-Cr-Al
nanoparticles were nearly spherical, with a mean diameter of
15 nm, particle size in the range of 5-100 nm, and a size distribution
consistent with a log-normal distribution with a large, long tail. The
resulting suspensions (~15 wt.%) were used for ESP deposition to
coat PU foam. Commercial PU foam with a mean pore size of 700

m and thickness of 2 mm was used as the polymer template. ESP
deposition was carried out on a 55 cm2 area of PU foam template
using a ESP system (ESR200R2, NanoNC Co., Ltd., Korea). A
slurry flow rate of 3 ml/h and a voltage of 4.5kV were used to obtain a stable cone jet mode for electrospraying. After the PU foam
template was coated by metallic nano-powders, it was dried for 24h
at room temperature. The dried metallic preforms were then heated
at 500 oC for 1 h at a heating rate of 2 oC/min with flowing H2 gas
to burn out the PU template. Next, heating of the residual body
continued up to 1400 oC under a flow of hydrogen gas (200 ml/min)
at a heating rate of 5 oC/min and a holding time of 2 h for sintering,
followed by cooling at a rate of 5 oC/min. The dimensions of sintered foams were measured with digital vernier calipers and
weighed to four-decimal accuracy for calculating porosity and density. The structures of the fabricated foams, including cell morphology and cell wall microstructure, were observed using a scanning
electron microscope (JSM-6500F, JEOL, Japan). The pore sizes of
the obtained foams was measured in the SEM images.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. (1) shows the SEM images of nanoparticle-coated polymeric and sintered metallic foams. The SEM figures clearly show that
the sintered foam possessed a homogeneous structure with openpore interconnectivity (Fig. 1c). More specifically, the cell structure
of the foam mirrored the structure of the polymeric template,
mainly because it was successfully decomposed during the burn-out
process. The average cell size of the Fe-Cr-Al foam was 450
m,
which was significantly smaller than that of the template due to the
burn-out process, as the polymer network shrunk and the gaps between coated metallic particles closed. In addition, this process may
have also been aided by the distribution of shrinkage during the
sintering process. Specifically, during the initial stages of the sintering process, nanoparticles were in loose contact with each other, but

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A Novel Method for Fabricating Fe-Cr-Al Open-cell Metallic

Current Nanoscience, 2014, Vol. 10, No. 1

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became consolidated to form solid bonds upon heating. Thus, sintering allowed for reduced pore volume, resulting in compact
shrinkage. Furthermore, as grain size and shape change during sintering, grain growth is common [14]. Thus, in our study, the nearly
spherical shape of starting powders fabricated by EEW became
faceted after the sintering process (Figs. 1b and 1d). Likewise, the
grain size of the sintered foam grew dramatically larger compared
to that of coated preforms. Although there had been a reduction in
size as a result of this shrinkage, the relics of the template structure
were well maintained. Measurement of dimension of metallic
preforms and sintered foam showed that the sintered foam under
went a remarkable 34% reduction in volume.

Fig. (2). Porosity and density of the Fe-Cr-Al foams as a function of

spraying time on PU foam.

Fig. (1). SEM micrograph of (a) Fe-Cr-Al coated preform, (b) surface of the
coating layer, (c) metallic foam sintered at 1400 oC, and (d) surface of a
sintered strut.

Importantly, the porosity and density of the foam used in this

study were easily controlled by varying the spraying time in the
ESP process as shown in Fig. (2). In our hands, the porosity of
metallic foam decreased steadily as the spraying time increased,
which was attributed to an increase in the thickness of the coating
layer on the PU sponge. Specifically, the foam density increased
with spraying time, while the foam porosity was inversely proportional to spraying time. During the initial spraying time, which
lasted 1 h, the degree of porosity reached as high as ~ 97%. As
expected, variation in spraying time altered the porosity, which
decreased to ~ 90% after a spraying time of 5h. On the contrary, the
density of the metallic foam increased as the spraying time increased. Specifically, the measured densities of the foams were
dependent on the strut thickness, whereby increases in strut thickness caused an increase in foam density and a decrease in porosity.
Therefore, the strut thickness was adjusted by altering the porosity
by choosing a suitable starting metallic slurry concentration and
spraying time. Further, the density was adjustable from a range
between 0.24 and 0.66 g/cm,3 corresponding to a spraying time of
1 to 5h. As the functional characteristics of the resulting structures
were highly variable but subject to exquisite control, they are suitable for various applications including catalysis, sound absorption,
filtration, and heat transfer.
The pore size of sintered foams can be determined primarily
from the size of the polymer template cells. Fig. (3) shows an SEM
micrograph of Fe-Cr-Al foam fabricated using a PU template with a
larger pore-size. The pore size of the PU foam was ca. 1.90 mm,
while the pore size of as-obtained alloyed foams was ca.1.30 mm.
The pore size of sintered foams was similarly much smaller than
that of PU foam due to the shrinkage phenomena; the porosity of
the sintered foam was 97% with a density of 0.23 g/cm3.

Fig. (3). SEM micrograph of Fe-Cr-Al foams sintered at 1400 oC with a PU

pore size of 0.92 mm.

In this study, we reported a novel and reproducible method for

preparing metallic and alloyed foams using a combination of EEW
and ESP processes. The outstanding features of this method are: (1)
low cost, (2) ability to synthesize metallic and alloyed nanoparticles
for fabrication of open-cell foams, (3) control of physical characteristics such as porosity at different scales, and (4) production of
foam with high porosity(> 90%) and high pore interconnectivity
(~ 100%).
CONCLUSIONS
We presented a novel method combining EEW in liquid with
ESP for fabrication of open-cell metallic and alloyed foam. The
open-cell structure of our method was easily manipulated by varying the PU template and/or adjusting the spraying process variables,
thereby providing significant freedom in choosing a structure design. This technology has the advantage of reproducible pore geometry, and may be applicable for numerous porous materials. This
strategy opens up a novel and cost-effective route to fabricate metallic and alloyed foam with a large internal surface area and porosity.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors confirm that this article content has no conflicts of
interest.

Bac
et al.

88 Current Nanoscience, 2014, Vol. 10, No. 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the Fundamental R&D Program
for Core Technology of Materials funded by the Ministry of
Knowledge Economy (MKE) of Korea.

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