Structural characterisation of porous copper sheets fabricated by lost carbonate sintering applied to tape casting

In this article, we describe experimental investigations of the structural characterisations of double-layered porous copper tapes of thickness down to 0.74 mm. The porous sheets were produced by a process combing tape casting and lost carbonate sintering (LCS) to control both the porosity and pores distribution of the sheets. By varying the values of processing parameters, double-layer (porous and dense) structured tapes with open cell structure and porosities ranging from 50.0 to 81.5% are produced. Scanning electron microscopy and actual size image analysis were employed to measure the pore size and surface porosity of the porous sample. The pore size distribution was characterised using Micro-CT scanner running Skyscan NRecon software and CTAn software. A helium pycnometer was employed to obtain the bulk porosity of the porous copper samples. Statistical analysis of these measurements was used to assess the efficiency and consistency of the space holder technique used to generate porosity, as well as to draw information about the influence that different processing routes have on the resulting mesostructure of the porous copper metal, and on its properties.