The European Ceramic Society

News

Jun 24, 2025

YCN Newsletter 27 - Research in spot - Katharina Rauchenwald

Freezing polymer solutions to create porous ceramics for CO2 utilization applications

Freezing might seem an unlikely method for structuring ceramics, just as creating ceramics from polymers might sound counterintuitive. Yet, combining these two techniques opens an interesting pathway for creating tailored porous materials, which can play an important role in the use of CO2 as a building block for chemical synthesis.

A key advantage of freeze-casting preceramic polymers is the ability to work with solutions rather than suspensions, which are inherently limited due to their colloidal nature. Furthermore, solution-based freeze-casting opens access to a wide range of organic solvents, allowing for diverse and controllable pore structures. A limiting factor in polymer-derived ceramics is often the crosslinking step required to stabilize the structures prior to pyrolytic conversion. However, when paired with low-temperature photopolymerization for crosslinking, solution-based freeze-casting offers great flexibility in the design of porous ceramic materials.

In the framework of the “CO₂Refinery” doctoral school at TU Wien, our Ceramics team at the Institute of Chemical Technologies and Analytics has developed porous SiOC ceramics via photopolymerization-assisted freeze-casting of preceramic polymers. These materials have been explored as porous frameworks for a variety of CO2 utilization applications by teaming up with experts from the fields of technical catalysis, organic synthesis, and biotechnology, developing supports for Ni-catalyzed gas phase CO₂ methanation, ionic-liquid-coated scaffolds for liquid phase cycloaddition of supercritical CO₂ with bio-based epoxides to form cyclic carbonates (e.g. for lithium-ion batteries), or substrates for industrially relevant microorganisms, where the aligned macroporosity has been shown to support microbial growth.

We are now extending our material design approach beyond monoliths towards alternative geometries for other reactor designs. While not a simple or singular solution to the CO₂ crisis, this research highlights the promise of early-stage advanced ceramics for future applications in catalysis, energy conversion, or biotechnology.

 

Freeze-cast SiOCs templated with different structure-directing solvents e. g. cyclohexane (CH) or tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) to support Ni or yeast microorganisms, respectively.

 

Dipl.-Ing. Katharina Rauchenwald

University assistant, PhD Student

TU Wien

Institute of Chemical Technologies and Analytics

Getreidemarkt 9, 164-CT, 1060 Vienna, Austria 

katharina.rauchenwald@tuwien.ac.at

linkedin.com/in/katharina-rauchenwald-a8448621a

Latest news

2025 ECerS International Ceramist Student Exchange Program – 3rd call!

In the frame of the 2025 ECerS International Student exchange program, ECerS is opening a first call to allow grants to European Students to attend the 2025 International Symposium on Green Processing for Advanced Ceramics (IGPAC 2025), organised by the Ceramic Society of Japan, from 5th to 9th October 2025 in Ise-Shima/Mie, Japan.

Jul 22, 2025
Next Deadline to apply to the JECS Trust for Mobility projects is 31st August 2025!

Please note that the decisions of the JECS Trust board will not be known before end of October 2025. Activities submitted for the deadline of 31st August 2025 for support from the JECS Trust should then not begin before November 2025.

Jul 22, 2025

Information

Contact us for any information: info@ecers.org - We will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible.

Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive our latest news.

Our actions

ECerS coordinates and promotes the study of ceramics through the following actions :

ECerS office

Av. Gouverneur Cornez , 4

7000 Mons

Belgium

Useful links