Ceramic foams by powder processing

Ceramic foams show a significant potential of development and application, essentially due to the emergence of environmental preoccupations. A brief overview of the state of the art in cellular ceramic application, preparation and characterization is presented in order to introduce some new data concerning the elaboration of mullite and PZT foams by a replication and a bubble generation method, respectively. Some discrepancies between the theory, developed for describing the properties of open-cell foams, and the experimental mechanical behaviour of these semi-closed cell materials were also shown.