Investigation on the Structural and Mechanical Properties of Al Foam Manufactured by Spark Plasma Sintering and Compression Molding Methods

Metal foam materials are used for various purposes including electrode materials, catalyst filters, and gas diffusion filters due to their porous structure. Increasing demand for metal foams has generated research to increase porosity as well as produce different pore sizes. The present paper illustrates a comparison of open-cell aluminum foams prepared using the space holder technique. The Al foams were fabricated by two different methods: spark plasma sintering (SPS) and the compression molding (CM) method. The effect of the content of sodium chloride particles, used as the space holder, as well as manufacturing technologies on the Al foam structure and their mechanical properties were investigated. The morphology and structure of the obtained Al foams were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and micro-computed tomography (CT). Compressive testing was performed to investigate mechanical properties. The porosity of the SPS Al foam sample was 61-74%, and was 60-72% for the CM sample. The compressive strength and Young’s modulus were 1.40 MPa, 1.41×10-2 GPa for the SPS sample and 0.9 MPa, 1.33×10-2 GPa for the CM sample, respectively. The space holder technique is a promising technique for fabricating metal foam materials for cathode current collectors in lithium-ion batteries applications.