Development of ethylene glycol-based gelcasting for the preparation of highly porous SiC ceramics

Aqueous gelcasting is inappropriate for the preparation of highly porous ceramics, due to the large drying shrinkage of green bodies caused by the high surface tension of water. To solve this problem, non-aqueous gelcasting using organic solvents with much lower surface tension was developed. However, for most organic solvents, the precipitation polymerization of gels led to the low strength of green bodies, which was inconvenient for the fabrication of large size workpieces. In this work, a novel ethylene glycol-based gelcasting was developed to prepare highly porous SiC ceramics. Ethylene glycol induced the solution polymerization of gels and increased the strength of green bodies effectively. In addition, the high flexibility of the ethylene glycol-based gels could release the inner stress in the drying process. Highly porous SiC ceramics with large size were successfully prepared by the optimized gelcasting method.