Producing light, strong foam glass under a low sintering temperature with insights from molecular simulations

We prepare a type of foam glass achieving an excellent combination of low sintering temperatures of 800 °C, low bulk densities of 320 kg/m ³, and high compressive strengths of 7.02 MPa. We determine the optimal experimental parameters first and comprehensively compare the structure-property relationship of the foam glass products with carbon and CaCO ₃ as foaming agents. The carbon-agent foam glasses with uniform pore structures exhibit low density and high strength while the CaCO ₃-agent counterpart with large, connected pores exhibits lower density, lower strength. Next, we investigate the effects of Na ₂HPO ₄ as foam stabilizer and find that 10 wt.% of Na ₂HPO ₄ can effectively stabilize the foaming effects and enable uniformly distributed pore structures. Finally, the molecular nature is elucidated with molecular dynamics simulations, where we find the nanoscale pore structure may play a key role in differing the mechanical performance. This integrated experimental and computational study demonstrates an efficient way to produce foam glasses of superior properties with theoretical insights.