Preparation of lightweight hollow glass microsphere ceramics by gel casting

Owing to low density, hollow glass microspheres (HGMs) float on common media such as water, ethanol, and tertiary butanol. As a result, HGMs are not suitable to prepare slurries and ceramics by gel, slip, and freeze castings. In this paper, polyacrylamide (PAM) was used as dispersant and thickener agent to prepare homogeneous HGM aqueous slurries with controlled solid loadings and subsequent lightweight HGM porous ceramics were prepared by gel casting. Effects of PAM content on the stability of aqueous slurries as well as effects of solid (i.e., HGM) loading on density, porosity, pore size distribution, and compressive strength of porous ceramics were investigated. Increasing the viscosity of the slurry resulted in HGMs with significantly lower floating rates and more stable HGM aqueous slurries. HGM porous ceramics with densities and compressive strengths of 0.127–0.219 g/cm ³ and 0.74–1.71 MPa, respectively, were prepared by gel casting.