Permeability and mechanical integrity of porous biomorphic SiC ceramics for application as hot-gas filters

Biomorphic SiC is a biotemplated material fabricated by Si melt-infiltration of carbon preforms from wood pyrolysis. In this work, porous bioSiC ceramics from five different wood precursors, with porosities between 45 and 72% were studied for their feasibility in filtering applications. Gas permeability and mechanical stability were investigated as a function of the microstructure of the starting wood precursor. Air-permeation performance at room temperature was measured for a range of flow rates, and the permeability constants were assessed by fitting of Forchheimer's equation to the experimental data. Darcian permeabilities were achieved in the range 10(-11)-10(-12) m(2), while inertial terms were in the range 10(-7)-10(-8)m, showing a correlation with the average pore size and orientation of the larger channels. Regarding the mechanical stability, maximum compressive strength values were reached in the range of 3-115 MPa. These results improve our understanding of the ways in which the microstructure influences permeability and mechanical robustness, enabling the device requirements to be tailored by selecting the wood precursor. It was also shown that these materials are promising for hot-gas filtering applications. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.