Ultra-thin nickel foam is still open-cell nickel foam, supplied as a thin sheet. It is not a different metal, and it is not nickel fiber felt or woven mesh that happens to be thin. Many thin sheets are produced by rolling or otherwise compressing a thicker starting foam, so the finished thickness, the pore structure and the areal mass have to be read together. This guide explains why those fields belong in the same enquiry, how to read published rolling or compression studies, and what to send for a quotation. It is not a ranking claim or a list of fixed HuiRui catalogue numbers.
What “ultra-thin” is — and is not
- A thin nickel-foam sheet. HuiRui lists an ultra-thin nickel foam product for thin-sheet enquiries. The product page states that thickness, dimensions and handling should be considered together, and that thickness and pore requirements must be reviewed as one specification. The listed process is electroplating sintering, and sizes are discussed to the enquiry. Treat any catalogue thickness band as a discussion starting point; finished thickness and its measurement condition are confirmed per enquiry. Product context: ultra-thin nickel foam. The general nickel foam page uses the same thickness, PPI and areal-mass language.
- Usually a finished thickness, not a different foam chemistry. A common industrial finishing route is to adjust thickness by rolling after the foam has been made. Sumitomo Electric lists thickness adjustment by rolling among its Celmet processing methods. Our nickel foam manufacturing guide describes cutting and rolling as finishing steps after the porous framework is formed, and the PPI guide already asks you to distinguish thickness as supplied from thickness after rolling, pressing or installation. This article is about specifying the thin finished sheet; it does not replace those guides.
- Not nickel fiber felt, and not a thin mesh. A sintered nickel-fiber felt of similar thickness is a different construction and is specified by porosity and thickness, not by foam PPI. See how to specify nickel foam, felt or mesh and nickel fiber felt porosity and thickness. Woven or knitted mesh uses mesh count and wire diameter.
- Not automatically the same as ultra-thin copper foam. HuiRui also lists an ultra-thin copper foam product. The starting metal is different; do not treat the two as interchangeable on a purchase order.
- Name the metal. The ultra-thin product page lists the material field as pure nickel / iron nickel. If your project needs iron-nickel alloy foam, say so explicitly; that is a different starting metal. See iron-nickel foam vs nickel foam.
How rolling and compression change the sheet
Zhang and Gong (2015) rolled a commercial nickel-foam current collector from 1.5 mm to 0.5 mm before growing a nickel–iron oxide electrode on it for supercapacitor tests. In their micrographs the pores became considerably smaller along the compressing direction. They also reported improved flexibility of that rolled sheet in winding tests. The capacitances and energy-density figures they give belong to those prepared electrodes and test protocols, not to as-supplied thin foam and not to HuiRui products. The practical point is that a rolled thickness is a new geometry: the starting PPI or pore description should not be assumed to describe the finished thin sheet in the same way.
Ercelik et al. (2024) imaged nickel foam under compression with X-ray computed tomography, in the context of gas-diffusion layers for polymer electrolyte fuel cells. In their samples, mean pore size decreased substantially as the compression ratio increased, while porosity and ligament thickness changed less than the pore size. Those measurements belong to the foams and compression levels they studied; they are not a conversion table for every PPI or thickness. They support the same specification rule: record the pore structure and thickness in the state that matters to the part, and do not infer one from the other after rolling or compression.
Pushkareva et al. (2025) started from commercial nickel foam — they report an initial thickness of 900 μm, 110 PPI and 90–95% porosity — and compressed it to a final thickness of 300 μm, then modified the foam with a microporous nickel ink for a zero-gap anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer gas-diffusion anode. Their abstract also notes that this modification helped smooth the foam to reduce the risk of membrane puncture during compression assembly. Those thicknesses, PPI values and cell results belong to that study’s samples and prepared electrodes, not to as-supplied HuiRui sheets. The useful distinction for a purchase order is the same: the starting foam, the finished thin thickness, and any further assembly compression are different measurement states.
None of these papers sets a single “correct” finished thickness, PPI or areal mass for every design.
What to specify (and what not to copy)
Finished thickness and its condition. State the target thickness and whether it is as-supplied as a thin sheet, after a specified rolling or pressing step, or under assembly compression. If you already know a starting (unrolled) thickness, include it. A caliper reading can change if the sheet is easy to flatten; note the measurement method if you already have one. For current-collector testing, the nickel foam current-collector guide likewise asks you to measure thickness in the condition used for the test.
Pore structure in both states if you have them. Give the starting PPI or pore description and, if you have it, a description of the finished thin sheet. PPI remains a pore-count convention, not a guaranteed opening size; see the PPI guide. After rolling, do not treat the starting PPI as a complete description of the openings that remain.
Areal mass. Give mass per unit area if you already have it, typically in g/m². Two thin sheets can share a thickness and still contain different amounts of nickel. The general nickel foam product page already treats areal mass as a separate entry.
Metal and construction. Name nickel foam, or iron-nickel foam if that is what you need. Confirm that the part is foam, not felt or mesh.
Sheet size, flatness and handling. Give length × width or a cut-part drawing. Thin sheets wrinkle, crease or curl more easily than thicker stock; say if you need samples first, and mention any flatness, edge, tab or packaging requirement you already have. If the part has a finished outline, see custom-shaped nickel foam. Thicker stock is a different enquiry; see the super-thick nickel foam listing and confirm grade and pore structure for that duty.
Role in the cell or device. Say whether the sheet is a bare current collector, a substrate that will carry a coating or active material, a gas-diffusion or porous transport layer, or another duty. Zhang and Gong grew material after rolling; Pushkareva et al. modified the foam and then assembled a cell. If you will coat or compress the sheet further, say so.
Do not treat a catalogue thickness band, or the literature results above, as verified cell performance or as a guaranteed production range for every order.
Ultra-thin nickel foam and nearby forms: a quick comparison
| Form | What it is | What to specify first |
|---|---|---|
| Ultra-thin nickel foam | Open-cell nickel foam supplied as a thin sheet, often after rolling | Finished thickness and its condition; starting and/or finished pore structure; areal mass if known; metal; cut size; bare or coated; duty |
| Standard nickel foam | Open-cell nickel foam at its as-made or lightly finished thickness | PPI and its method, thickness and condition, areal mass if known, cut size (43373) |
| Nickel fiber felt | Sintered nickel-fiber sheet, not foam | Porosity, thickness, sheet size (43460, 43398) |
| Ultra-thin copper foam | Open-cell copper foam as a thin sheet | The same geometry fields, but name copper as the metal |
A rolled foam that performed well in one published cell is not a specification for every thin sheet, and it is not a reason to omit areal mass or the thickness condition from the enquiry.
What to send for a quote
You do not need a complete laboratory list to contact HuiRui. A sketch, a drawing, or an approximate size and thickness is enough to start. The items below help when you already have them:
- The job: current collector, catalyst substrate, gas-diffusion or porous layer, or another use.
- The starting material: nickel foam, iron-nickel foam, or copper foam if that is what you need.
- Target finished thickness, and whether that number is as-supplied, after rolling or pressing, or under assembly compression. Include a starting thickness if you have one.
- PPI or another pore-structure description, and whether it refers to the starting foam or the finished thin sheet. Include the counting or measurement method if known.
- Areal mass if you already have one.
- Cut size or blank size, quantity, and whether you need samples first. Note flatness, edge or handling requirements if you have them.
- Bare or coated; if coated, the type and which face(s), or a pointer to your specification.
We supply ultra-thin nickel foam and other nickel foam forms. Related materials include nickel foam, custom-shaped nickel foam, and a listed ultra-thin copper foam product. Finished thickness, pore structure and areal mass are confirmed per enquiry. Do not treat product-page catalogue ranges, or the literature results above, as verified cell performance for every design. Send the drawing and the items you already know, and we will reply with what we can make.
References
- L. Zhang and H. Gong, “Improvement in flexibility and volumetric performance for supercapacitor application and the effect of Ni–Fe ratio on electrode behaviour”, Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2015). https://doi.org/10.1039/c4ta06649a
- M. Ercelik, M.S. Ismail, K.J. Hughes, D.B. Ingham, L. Ma and M. Pourkashanian, “X-ray CT-based numerical investigation of nickel foam-based GDLs under compression”, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.07.001
- I.V. Pushkareva, Z. Wu, X. Liu, M.A. Solovyev, S.I. Butrim, M.V. Kozlova, T.L. Kulova, R. Crispin, E.M. Björk, D.G. Bessarabov, M. Vagin and A.S. Pushkarev, “Advanced Nickel-Based Gas Diffusion Anode for Zero-Gap Anion-Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers”, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2025). https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c01272
- Sumitomo Electric, Celmet product information (processing methods include thickness adjustment by rolling). https://sumitomoelectric.com/jp/products/celmet/product-info