Fabrication of Porous Copper by Cold Extrusion and Leaching

Conventional porous metals show relatively low strength due to softening in high-temperature treatments such as casting or bubbling. In the current study, the authors propose an alternative method to fabricate high-strength porous metals using cold working. A copper pipe filled with Cu and Al wires was deformed by cold extrusion to solid-phase bonding. From the Cu/Al composite, only aluminum is removed chemically by NaOH solution leaching to produce porous copper with one-dimensional pores. The porous copper fabricated shows outstanding compressive yield strength than conventional porous copper.