Ice Templating and Freeze-Drying for Porous Materials and Their Applications

5Porous Ceramics and Metals by Ice Templating

5.1 Introduction

Porous ceramics have unique applications as filters for water treatment/hot gases/molten metals, high‐temperature thermal insulation, catalysts or catalyst support, and bioscaffolds for tissue engineering (particularly bone engineering) [1]. These applications require porous ceramics with specific properties including high temperature stability, mechanical strength, interconnected porosity or closed pores, low density, and low thermal conductivity [2]. A variety of fabrication methods have been developed for the preparation of macroporous ceramics because most of these applications would require the presence of macropores (>50 nm by IUPAC definition, and indeed mostly in the micron ...