11. Other areas for metal foams

11.1 Filtration applications

Open-structure metal foams are particularly well suited to filtration and/or fluid separation applications.

The morphology of foams used for this type of application is highly dependent on the fluids involved and functional requirements. They compete with porous metals, which generally have a much lower relative porosity (of the order of 0.30 vs. 0.7 to over 0.9).

Several manufacturers of metal foams (Exxentris, Alantum Co, Alvéotec, etc.) report this application for their products and offer prototypes or realizations (figures 27 ,