HTMat

Si-SiC open cell foams with porosity >87% and high pore sizes (4-7 mm) are commonly employed as active zone in porous burners for heat radiation applications. In a porous burner, the solid porous body let the heat recirculate from the hot combustion products to the incoming reactants. The result is that the flame is confined within the foam, meaning high thermomechanical loadings on its constituent material. A set of commercial Si-SiC foams from the same production batch was aged with flat porous burners.

Silicon carbide ceramics obtained by silicon reactive infiltration are nowadays employed within industry in several high temperature applications. Although these ceramics show good thermo-mechanical properties and oxidation resistance, they suffer temperature limitations (1400 °C). At higher temperatures another type of ceramics, commonly known as ultra high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), is under study. These include the transition metal diborides of group IV; one in particular, zirconium diboride, is interesting in certain applications (e.g. aerospace) because of its low relative density.

Silicon carbide multilayer composites containing short carbon fibres (Csf/SiC) were prepared by tape casting and pressureless sintering. C fibres were dispersed in solvents and then mixed with SiC slurry to make green Csf/SiC tape. Triton X-100 was found to be the best one for Toho Tenax HTC124 fibres (with water soluble coating) among BYK-163, BYK-410, BYK-2150, BYK-9076, BYK-9077 and Triton X-100 dispersants. Csf/SiC multilayer composites containing 5 vol.% fibre (mean fibre length of 3, 4.5, and 6 mm) were obtained.

Si–SiC–ZrB2 are produced by the reactive infiltration with molten silicon in porous SiC–C–ZrB2 preforms. It is observed that oxidized Si–SiC–ZrB2 ceramics present a layered structure composed of an outer layer of silica and a borosilicate glass intermediate layer with ZrO2 particles and the unoxidized bulk material. The graphs show that the passivation is very effective already after 5 min of oxidation. The thermograms do not vary significantly when the oxidation times are increased.

The reactive penetration of Al based alloys in massive silica glass and sintered preforms (made of silica, silica plus silicon carbide or silica plus aluminium nitride) was investigated. The reactions occurring during preform sintering and reactive metal penetration were preliminarily studied by Differential Thermal Analysis. Square bars of co-continuous composites were then processed by using this reactive metal penetration (RMP) method.

As an alternative to previously developed catalytic FeCrAlloy fibre mat burners based on perovskite catalysts, new catalytic burners have been developed based on Pd catalyst on lantana-stabilised Al2O3 and different fibre structures (NIT100A, NIT100S and NIT200S by ACOTECH NV).

Combustion synthesis has been applied to LaMnO3 production with a view to boosting its activity towards natural gas combustion by enhancing its specific surface area. With a highly exothermic and self-sustaining reaction, this oxide can be quickly prepared from an aqueous solution of metal nitrates (oxidisers) and urea (fuel). The favourable conditions for LaMnO3 formation were sought: only fuel-rich mixtures are effective, but carbonaceous deposits are formed when too much urea is used.

Co-continuous ceramic-metal composites (C4) were prepared by reactive metal penetration of cordierite-based ceramics used as oven refractory. A compositional and physical characterisation of both precursors and composites was carried out to understand how the choice of the starting material affects the reactive metal penetration. Mechanical behaviour was then compared with that of composites obtained from silica glass or fully sintered cordierite ceramics.