Structural porous silicon nitrides

Non-oxide ceramic materials such as silicon carbide has been used commercially as a membrane support material and studied as a potential membrane material. Silicon nitride has also the potential of being a ceramic membrane material. In fact, both materials have been used in other high-temperature structural ceramic applications. Oxidation resistance of these non-oxide ceramics as membrane materials for membrane reactor applications is obviously very important. The oxidation rate is related to the reactive surface area thus oxidation of porous non-oxide ceramics depends on their open porosity. The generally accepted oxidation mechanism of porous silicon nitride materials consists of two... 

Although, in structural materials, the pores are generally beheved to cause a deterioration in mechanical reliability, this is not always true. Rather, the pores may cause an improved or even unique mechanical performance of the material which cannot be attained in the dense counterpart, especially when the porous microstructure is carefully tailored. Two examples of porous silicon nitrides are described in the... 

A flow-pattern map comprises dispersed flow, annular flow, slug-dispersed flow and slug-annular flow [278]. The highest specific interface measured amounts to 16 000 m2/m3. A porous surface structure (100 cm2) in the reaction channel can be generated by a sulfurhexafluoride plasma etch process with silicon nitride masking [278],... 

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