Processing and applications of ceramic microspheres

Abstract

This chapter is focused on processing techniques for dense, porous, and hollow ceramic microspheres and their applications. A large number of studies focused on modeling and observations from nature revealed that complex pore networks have many advantages. However, fabrication of the designed pore architecture remains a challenge, notably for the porous microspheres. Newly developed hierarchically porous microstructure design possibilities by optimizing the ceramic spheres’ processing conditions via numerous processing techniques, such as templating, solvothermal, sol-gel, spray-drying, and emulsion processes, are discussed in this chapter. The important characteristics, such as type, diameter, thickness, and surface area, of the microspheres developed by various processes are also given.