A method of fabricating an article includes providing an arrangement of loose nanowires and bonding the loose nanowires in the presence of carbon together into a unitary cellular structure.

A three-dimensional metallic foam is fabricated with an active oxide material for use as an anode for lithium batteries. The porous metal foam, which can be fabricated by a freeze-casting process, is used as the anode current collector of the lithium battery. The porous metal foam can be heat-treated to form an active oxide material to form on the surface of the metal foam. The oxide material acts as the three-dimensional active material that reacts with lithium ions during charging and discharging.

A three-dimensional metallic foam is fabricated with an active oxide material for use as an anode for lithium batteries. The porous metal foam, which can be fabricated by a freeze-casting process, is used as the anode current collector of the lithium battery. The porous metal foam can be heat-treated to form an active oxide material to form on the surface of the metal foam. The oxide material acts as the three-dimensional active material that reacts with lithium ions during charging and discharging.

A part includes a three-dimensional porous metallic workpiece printed via an additive manufacturing process and subsequently subjected to a diffusion-based process to convert at least a portion of the porous metallic workpiece to a ceramic workpiece or an intermetallic workpiece.

The present invention discloses novel methods for producing highly porous ceramic and/or metal aerogel monolithic objects that are hard, sturdy, and resistant to high temperatures. These methods comprise preparing nanoparticulate oxides of metals and/or metalloids via a step of vigorous stirring to prevent gelation, preparing polymer-modified xerogel powder compositions by reacting said nanoparticulate oxides with one or more polyfunctional monomers, compressing said polymer-modified xerogel powder compositions into shaped compacts, and carbothermal conversion of the shaped xerogel compacts via pyrolysis to provide the highly porous ceramic and/or metal aerogel monolithic objects that have the same shapes as to their corresponding xerogel compact precursors. Representative of the highly porous ceramic and/or metal aerogel monolithic objects of the invention are ceramic and/or metal aerogels of Si, Zr, Hf, Ti, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Ru, Au, and the like. Examples include sturdy, shaped, highly porous silicon carbide (SiC), silicon nitride (Si.sub.3N.sub.4), zirconium carbide (ZrC), hafnium carbide (HfC), chromium carbide (Cr.sub.3C.sub.2), titanium carbide (TiC), zirconium boride (ZrB.sub.2), hafnium boride (HfB.sub.2), and metallic aerogels of iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), ruthenium (Ru), gold (Au), and the like. Said aerogel monolithic objects have utility in various applications such as, illustratively, in abrasives, in cutting tools, as catalyst support materials such as in reformers and converters, as filters such as for molten metals and hot gasses, in bio-medical tissue engineering such as bone replacement materials, in applications requiring strong lightweight materials such as in automotive and aircraft structural components, in ultra-high temperature ceramics, and the like.

According to one embodiment, a method of forming a metal foam with substantially uniform density includes forming a metallopolymer network including metallopolymer material with pre-defined ionic conductivity and pre-defined polymeric chain length, adding a reductant to the metallopolymer network during formation thereof for creating metal nanoparticles in the metallopolymer network, where the metal nanoparticles have substantially uniform size, and heating the reduced metallopolymer network for sintering the metal nanoparticles into a network.

According to one embodiment, a method of forming a metal foam with substantially uniform density includes forming a metallopolymer network including metallopolymer material with pre-defined ionic conductivity and pre-defined polymeric chain length, adding a reductant to the metallopolymer network during formation thereof for creating metal nanoparticles in the metallopolymer network, where the metal nanoparticles have substantially uniform size, and heating the reduced metallopolymer network for sintering the metal nanoparticles into a network.

A process for producing a metal foam includes mechanically working a metallic powder such that oxide particles are finely dispersed within a metallic matrix and annealing the mechanically worked metallic powder in a vacuum the annealed metallic powder such that intraparticle porosity is formed by decomposition of the oxide particles at elevated temperature to reduce the oxide particles to metallic form and liberate the oxygen atoms in gaseous form, thereby creating porosity.

A three-dimensional metallic foam is fabricated with an active oxide material for use as an anode for lithium batteries. The porous metal foam, which can be fabricated by a freeze-casting process, is used as the anode current collector of the lithium battery. The porous metal foam can be heat-treated to form an active oxide material to form on the surface of the metal foam. The oxide material acts as the three-dimensional active material that reacts with lithium ions during charging and discharging.

A three-dimensional metallic foam is fabricated with an active oxide material for use as an anode for lithium batteries. The porous metal foam, which can be fabricated by a freeze-casting process, is used as the anode current collector of the lithium battery. The porous metal foam can be heat-treated to form an active oxide material to form on the surface of the metal foam. The oxide material acts as the three-dimensional active material that reacts with lithium ions during charging and discharging.