Fabrication and formation mechanism of carbon foam with two-level cell structure

A novel method was developed for production of carbon foam with two-level cell structure, which possesses two kinds of cell sizes of about 1 pm and 300 mu m. Results show a carbothermal reduction occurs between the pore wall of first-level foam and the nano-MgO at high temperatures, which results in further bubbling and forming the second-level foam. The carbon foam prepared exhibits a characteristic of pseudoplastic deformation with a relatively compressive strength of 1.72 MPa, and possesses a low bulk density of 0.11 g/cm(3) and a high porosity of 94.2%.