The subsequent sintering cycle involved first removal of organic components, which was achieved by heating the samples from room temperature to 500 • C at a rate of 3 • C/min and holding them at this temperature for 5 hrs. Then, samples were sintered at 1400 • C (heating rate of 5 • C/min) for 3 hrs. 2 mm of the bottom of each sample were cut off to remove the portion of the samples with an initial porosity gradient . Finally, between 5 to 8 bars were cut from each ice-templated monolith with dimensions of 14 × 3 × 3 mm 3 and a longitudinally oriented porosity.