Low temperature solid-phase sintering of sintered metal fibrous media with high specific surface area

A procedure of low temperature solid-phase sintering (LTSS) was carried out to fabricate sintered metal fibrous media (SMFM) with high specific surface area. Stainless steel fibers which were produced by cutting process were first plated with a coarse copper coating layer by electroless plating process. A low-temperature sintering process was then completed at about 800 °C for 1 h under the protection of hydrogen atmosphere. The results show that a novel SMFM with complex surface morphology and high specific surface area (>0.2 m2/g) can be obtained in this way. The effect of sintering temperature on the surface morphology and specific surface area of SMFM was studied by means of scanning electron microscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller. The damage of micro-structure during the sintering process mainly contributed to the loss of specific surface area of SMFM and the optimal sintering temperature was 800 °C.