Date of Award
5-2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Mechanical Engineering
Committee Member
Dr. Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte, Committee Chair
Committee Member
Dr. Suyi Li
Committee Member
Dr. Xiangchun Xuan
Committee Member
Dr. Garrett Pataky
Abstract
This dissertation presents an origami-inspired manufacturing and an additive manufacturing platform for the fabrication of 3D shapes of porous carbide material using renewable biopolymers as the carbon source. Porous carbide materials possess interesting properties including low density, high surface area, high chemical inertness, high oxidation resistance, adjustable electrical conductivity, and high mechanical properties. Due to such properties, they are used in different applications such as high temperature filters, catalytic support, thermal insulators and structural materials. The state-of-the-art to manufacture porous carbide materials includes direct foaming and templating methods. However, shaping of porous materials with these techniques relies on the use of molds, which restricts the shape complexity of the fabricated parts. Furthermore, most of the carbon precursors used in the current fabrication methods are polymers synthesized from non-renewable petroleum, which leads to a non-environment-friendly synthesis process of carbide materials. Different biopolymers including gelatin, chitosan and glucose have been demonstrated for a sustainable approach for the synthesis of carbide materials by previous authors. However, these synthesis approaches were limited only to the production of carbide nanoparticles. No method was reported so far for the fabrication of 3D shapes of porous carbide materials using the biopolymeric approaches. Hence, in this dissertation, I intend to develop manufacturing platforms which allow for the fabrication of 3D complex shapes of carbide materials using renewable biopolymers to achieve an environment-friendly process.
Recommended Citation
Islam, Monsur, "Advanced Manufacturing of Lightweight Porous Carbide Shapes Using Renewable Resources" (2018). All Dissertations. 2138.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/2138