Wetting properties and chemical interactions of copper with industrial filter materials

Copper foundries have started using ceramic foam filters to increase copper melt purity and improve cast quality. For the selection of filter materials, the interaction between the copper melt and the filter materials is a sig-nificant criterion. This study aims to determine interactions and wetting behavior between commercially available filter materials and pure copper melt using sessile drop technique. SEM/EDX analysis revealed no interactions between Cu and the filter materials, ZrO2, Al2O3-ZrO2, Al2O3-P, and Al2O3-Si. Although Cu and SiC showed no visible reaction, a kind of Cu infiltration into the SiC substrate was observed. The wetting behavior was different for the different substrate materials characterized by the increasing contact angle from Cu/ZrO2, Cu/SiC, Cu/Al2O3-ZrO2, Cu/Al2O3-P to Cu/Al2O3-Si.