X-ray micro computed tomography characterization of cellular SiC foams for their applications in chemical engineering

Open-cell SiC foams clearly are promising materials for continuous-flow chemical applications such as heterogeneous catalysis and distillation. X-ray micro computed tomography characterization of cellular β-SiC foams at a spatial voxel size of 13.6³ μm³ and the interpretation of morphological properties of SiC open-cell foams with implications to their transport properties are presented. In-situ draining experiments were carried out in order to understand the nature of the residual static liquid hold-up in SiC foams enabling a better modeling and design of structured reactors based on SiC foams in the future. In order to see more practical uses, μ-CT data of cellular foams must be exploited to optimize the design of the morphology of foams for a specific application.