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Abstract
Three dicotyledonous woods of local origin mango (Mangifera indica), jackfruit (Artocarpus integrifolia) and teak (Tectona grandis) were transformed by pyrolysis into carbonaceous preforms and subsequently converted into cellular porous SiC ceramics by liquid Si infiltration under vacuum. The pyrolysed mango, jackfruit and teak were characterised in terms of pyrolysis weight loss, shrinkages, bulk density and microstructures. The end ceramics were light weight and found to have porosities in the range of 35·5–54·5 vol.-% depending on the preform carbon density and infiltration temperatures. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging confirmed the preservation of cellular tissue anatomy of the precursor wood structure in the morphologies of final ceramics. The cellular porous SiC ceramics from mango, jackfruit and teak exhibited excellent oxidation resistance during heating to 1350°C in flowing air. Porous SiC mango gives the highest porosity with more than 80% pores being in the range of 0·5–11·58 μm and an average pore diameter of 7·82 μm, while the lowest porosity is obtained in the case of porous SiC jackfruit which has a mean pore diameter of 7 μm with ∼89% of pores in the range of 0·51–11·56 μm, indicating that the cellular porous SiC ceramic possesses application potential in the hot gas filtration area.