Preparation and Fabrication of Porous Copper Using Egg Yolk as the Foaming Agent

Copper is a well-known material that is used for various applications owing to its good thermal conductivity and thermal properties. The development of porous metals is still a challenge in the field of materials research. The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of sintering temperature and the ratio of copper powder to egg yolk on the production of porous copper. In this study, the powder metallurgy route was followed to produce a porous metal with egg yolk as the foaming agent. The green mixture was dried at 160 ℃, while the sintering temperatures were 750, 800, and 850 ℃. Based on the test results, a maximum porosity of 85.62% was achieved at a copper powder to egg ratio of 1:1.25 at a sintering temperature of 800 ℃ and heating rate of 10 ℃/min. Furthermore, the porous metal achieved a maximum compressive strength of 0.03 MPa. The sizes of the pores formed in the sintered part ranged from 12.55 μm to 288.3 μm. The evaluation results revealed that the metal foam was composed of 99.95% copper (Cu) and 0.033% lead (Pb). Meanwhile, the porous copper had a minimum density of 1.21 g/cm3, and shrinkage of between 16.51 to 39.26%.