ZHANG Jungui, ZHOU Jian’er, LI Jun, LI Jiake, WANG Delin

(Key Laboratory of Jiangxi Province for Advanced Ceramic Materials, School of Material Science and Engineering, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen 333001, Jiangxi, China)

Abstract: Cordierite-based porous material was prepared by using cordierite, alumina, kaolin and steatite, etc. as raw materials. Effects of cordierite particle gradation (namely big, medium and small in particle size) on the porosity of the cordierite-based material were studied.Bending strength and microstructure of the material were examined by means of SEM and material testing machine, etc. The results show that porous ceramic materials with the porosity of more than 40% and the bending strength of more than 20 MPa may be obtained from cordierite mixtures with reasonable proportions of three particle sizes that were calcined at 1300 °C and held for 30 min, and the adding amount of medium-sized particles played a more important role in increasing the porosity of the material than others.

Key words: cordierite; particle gradation; porosity; microstructure