Goodfellow, England, offers a microporous copper foam with pore sizes between 300 and 600 µm and a relative density of around 37%. This provides a much higher surface area than traditional copper foams, and is a powerful heat sink. Microporous copper foam is produced by means of a lost-carbonate sintering process. Pure copper powder is mixed with a carbonate powder, then compacted and sintered. This forms a matrix of copper ligaments, with spaces filled with carbonate powder.
After cooling, the carbonate is dissolved away in water and recycled or decomposed using heat. The resulting structure is regular and uniform throughout, giving a rigid, highly porous and permeable structure with a controlled density of metal per unit volume.
Applications of microporous copper foam include but are not limited to board-level electronics cooling, power electronics, and EMI shielding. This microporous material is expected to be of particular interest to design engineers working in fields requiring heat exchange.
The foam is available as disks and sheets ranging in thickness from 4 to 10 mm. Other thicknesses may be available upon request.
www.goodfellow.com
