The present invention is directed toward respirable dry particles for delivery of divalent metal cation salts and/or monovalent cation salts to the respiratory tract and methods for treating a subject having a respiratory disease and/or infection.

A method for producing a structural component having a foam structure formed by foaming a foamable material, includes the following steps: additively building a receiving component that reproduces the outer geometry of the structural component to be produced at least in some sections, in particular completely, and having a receiving space for receiving foamable material; introducing at least one foamable material into the receiving space of the receiving component; and carrying out at least one measure for foaming the foamable material introduced into the receiving space of the receiving component so as to form the foam structure.

A method and a device for producing a foamable, strip-like pressed powder metal sheet blank, and to such a pressed powder metal sheet blank. Foamable pressed powder metal sheet blanks are commonly produced by means of hot pressing. However, this costs energy and can adversely affect the quality of the metal foam produced from the pressed powder metal sheet blank due to the gasification of the foaming agent. Therefore, the pressed powder metal sheet blank is produced from a powder mixture containing at least one metal powder and a foaming agent powder by means of cold rolling. In this way, a wider range of foaming agents can be used and the amount of energy required to produce the pressed powder metal sheet blank is reduced.

A method and a device for producing a foamable, strip-like pressed powder metal sheet blank, and to such a pressed powder metal sheet blank. Foamable pressed powder metal sheet blanks are commonly produced by means of hot pressing. However, this costs energy and can adversely affect the quality of the metal foam produced from the pressed powder metal sheet blank due to the gasification of the foaming agent. Therefore, the pressed powder metal sheet blank is produced from a powder mixture containing at least one metal powder and a foaming agent powder by means of cold rolling. In this way, a wider range of foaming agents can be used and the amount of energy required to produce the pressed powder metal sheet blank is reduced.

A plurality of porous metal bodies which are bonded with each other at bonded-boundary surfaces parallel to a first direction, each of the porous metal bodies has a three-dimensional network structure formed from a continuous skeleton in which a plurality of pores are interconnected so as to have a porosity rate different from another porous metal body, the pores formed in at least the porous metal body having the higher porosity rate are formed to have flat shapes which are long along a direction parallel to the bonded-boundary surface and short along a direction orthogonal to the bonded-boundary surface, an entire porosity rate of a bonded body of the porous metal bodies is 50% to 92%, a compressive strength compressing in the direction parallel to the bonded-boundary surface is 1.4 times to 5 times of a compressive strength compressing in the direction orthogonal to the bonded-boundary surface.

Porous implant material having a plurality of metal bodies having different porosity rates which are bonded with each other at bonded-boundary surface F parallel to a first direction, wherein: a bonded body of the metal bodies has an entire porosity rate of 50% to 92%; the metal body having higher porosity rate is a porous metal body having a three-dimensional network formed from a continuous skeleton in which a plurality of pores are interconnected; the metal body having lower porosity rate has a porosity rate of 0 to 50% and an area-occupation rate of 0.5% to 50% in a cross-section surface orthogonal to an axial direction which agrees with the first direction along the bonded-boundary surface; and a compressive strength compressing in a direction parallel to the bonded-boundary surface is 1.4 times to 10 times of a compressive strength compressing in a direction orthogonal to the bonded-boundary surface.

A method of fabricating a metal cellular structure includes providing a sol-gel that is a colloid dispersed in a solvent, the colloid including metal-containing regions bound together by polymeric ligands, removing the solvent from the gel using supercritical drying to produce a dry gel of the metal-containing regions bound together by the polymeric ligands, and thermally converting the dry gel to a cellular structure with a coating in at least one step using phase separation of at least two insoluble elements. Also disclosed is a metal cellular structure including interconnected metal ligaments having a cellular structure and a carbon-containing coating around the metal ligaments.

Disclosed is a method for obtaining a porous titanium part in a metal material, wherein a starting titanium powder is pure, which has a mean particle size of 200 micrometers, a flow rate of 93 s calculated according to ISO 4490 standard, an apparent density of 1.0 g/cm.sup.3 calculated according to ISO 3923/1, and the starting titanium powder is mixed at a proportion of 34% of titanium by weight with at least 50% by weight of sodium chloride (NaCl) having a particle size between 300 and 600 micrometers.

This method for producing porous sintered aluminum includes: mixing aluminum powder with a sintering aid powder containing a sintering aid element to obtain a raw aluminum mixed powder; forming the raw aluminum mixed powder into a formed object prior to sintering having pores; and heating the formed object prior to sintering in a non-oxidizing atmosphere to produce porous sintered aluminum, wherein the sintering aid element is titanium, and when a temperature at which the raw aluminum mixed powder starts to melt is expressed as Tm ( C.), then a temperature T ( C.) of the heating fulfills Tm-10 ( C.)T685 ( C.).

A preparation method of copper foam includes coating copper paste on a release film to form a coating sheet with a thickness of 50-200 m on the release film, peeling off the release film to obtain a copper foam preform after drying the release film with the coating sheet, and performing a glue discharging process on the copper foam preform and sintering the copper foam preform to obtain the copper foam having a thickness of 30-120 m and having a porosity of 50-80%. The thickness of the copper foam is reduced, which ensures a balance between the porosity and a structural strength of the copper foam, so the copper foam has a good water absorption performance, and a heat dissipation performance of the copper foam is effectively improved.