Effect of the porogen content and the sintering temperature on the aperture of porous copper materials

Copper porous materials had been manufactured by adding methylcellulose as the porogen. The effect of weight percentage of methylcellulose and sintering temperature on the microstructure and porosity of porous copper materials were investigated. The results show that the pyrolysis of methylcellulose leads to the pores in copper matrix. The porosity of copper porous materials enhances along with the increase of methylcellulose content. The permeability of them increases firstly and then decreases along with the porogen content, because excessive methylcellulose brings about the apparent uneven distribution of pores. The sintering mechanism changes from surface diffusion to volume diffusion with the rise of sintering temperature, which influences the porosity and pore structure of materials. With the rising of sintering temperature, the porosity of porous materials increases firstly under the lower sintering temperature and then decreases under the higher sintering temperature. The number of micropores increases obviously at high sintering temperature.