Effect of dealloying temperature on ligament morphology and size of hierarchically porous silver and its mechanical behaviour

Hierarchically porous metal materials show great potential for applications in catalysis, energy storage, etc. However, its brittle nature is unfavorable to the application scope and prospect of hierarchically porous metal materials. In this paper, a three-level hierarchically porous silver (THPS) was prepared by a combinational method of Gasar and dealloying processes. THPS with ligament size in range of 16–55 nm was prepared by chemical dealloying with citric acid at different temperatures. The results show that the temperature has a significant effect on the structure of THPS. As the temperature increase, the structure of the nano-ligament is coarsened, the hardness and elastic modulus of THPS show a downward trend.