Facile fabrication of cordierite-based porous ceramics with magnetic properties

In this paper,cordierite-based porous ceramics with magnetic properties have been firstly in-situ synthesized by using MgO,Al_(2)O_(3),and SiO_(2) powders as raw materials and Fe_(3)O_(4) as a functional additive.Combining with the foam freeze casting method,near net size fabrication(total linear shrinkage<2.86%)of the magnetic porous materials was realized by adjusting the amount of Fe_(3)O_(4).The porosity,compressive strength,and saturation magnetization of the prepared materials were 83.9%-87.8%,1.51-2.65 MPa,and 1.2-5.8 emu/g,respectively.The phase composition and microstructure evolutions during sintering were investigated briefly.The results showed that the synthesis temperature of cordierite was lowered about 100℃ due to the addition of Fe_(3)O_(4).Except for the main phase-cordierite,Mg-Al-Fe spinel and α-Fe_(2)O_(3) also existed in the final materials.The lattice parameters of the Mg-Al-Fe spinel and the amount of α-Fe_(2)O_(3) changed obviously with the change in the sintering temperature and Fe_(3)O_(4) amount,which mainly influenced the magnetic properties of the prepared materials.Thus,a facile fabrication method of the cordierite-based porous ceramics with the magnetic properties has been put forward in this paper.