The crisis faced by the energy sector has led to a growing interest in the use of refractory porous ceramics as high temperature insulators, due to their unique combination of properties: chemical inertia, refractoriness and low thermal conductivity. Among the several techniques employed in the production of these materials, the addition of organic particles, which volatilize during the first heat-up, to the ceramic matrix is one of the most promising techniques. This procedure can be optimized in order to attain a better control over the porosity using the heterocoagulation of the inorganic and organic parts of a suspension. The purpose of the present work was to evaluate the impact of the heterocoagulation on the production of porous ceramics using PVC and starch as organic and alumina as inorganic compounds. The most suitable conditions to promote heterocoagulation of the constituents were previously determined. The increasing of the volume fraction of the organic parts generated more porous materials for both additives. However, the maximum amount of organics was set in 50 vol.% in order to achieve acceptable mechanical strength. It was also found out that compared to the conventional process, the porous ceramics obtained by heterocoagulation presented superior microestrutural homogeneity and mechanical strength.
Porous ceramics; organic compounds burn-out; heterocoagulation
