Highly porous ZrO2 cellular ceramics with 3D network architecture.

Cellular ceramics with 3D network architecture are attracting ever-increasing attention because of their great application potential in multiple fields. Unfortunately, a daunting challenge still remains for fabricating such materials. A novel methodology is provided in the current work to construct cellular ZrO 2 ceramics with such architecture by combining polyurethane foaming and chemical modification technology. Stearic acid grafted ZrO 2 powder with improved dispersibility allows the successful assembly into the polyurethane porous framework. The obtained cellular materials possess a three-dimensional network architecture with windows on the cell wall. The resulting ZrO 2 cellular ceramic with such unique structure exhibits a relatively high porosity (83.5%) and robust compressive strength (13.5 MPa), which outperforms most of the existing ZrO 2 -based counterparts. With above advantages, we envision that as-prepared products are promising for filter applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]