Porous ceramics prepared using poppy seed as a pore-forming agent

It is shown that poppy (Papaver rhoeas L.) seed is a potentially interesting and unique pore-forming agent (PFA) for use in ceramic technology, due to its large size (around 1 mm), narrow size distribution, constant shape (kidney-like), appropriate density and easy availability. Porous alumina ceramics have been produced using commercially available poppy seed in combination with a new ceramic shaping technique called starch consolidation casting. After shaping and drying the ceramic green bodies were fired at 1570 °C with a heating rate of 2 °C/min, resulting in porous alumina bodies with a bulk density of 2.50 ± 0.03 g/cm3, a total porosity of 37.6 ± 0.8% (open porosity 32.4 ± 0.9%, closed porosity 5.2 ± 0.3%) and a linear shrinkage of 14.1 ± 0.2%. As expected, the pore size exhibits a bimodal distribution, corresponding closely to the original size of the pore-forming agents.