A novel way to fabricate highly porous fibrous YSZ ceramics with improved thermal and mechanical properties

Inspired by nest structure, highly porous fibrous yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) ceramics were fabricated through tert-butyl alcohol (TBA)-based gel-casting process and pressureless sintering by using YSZ fibers as raw material and adding K2SO4 as removable sintering aid. Different sintering temperature and soaking time were investigated to achieve optimal thermal and mechanical properties. The results show that all specimens consist of crystallized t-YSZ phase. Fibers interconnect with good interfacial bonding on junctions. Under higher sintering temperature, porosity drops gradually while compressive strength increases significantly. With prolonged soaking time, there is no obvious change in porosity and compressive strength increases gradually. All specimens have uniformly distributed pores with average size of 30.2 μm and show good structural stability at high temperature. Ultra-low thermal conductivity is achieved and ductile fracture mode with high elongation makes it more applicable in high-temperature thermal insulating applications.