MERCURY INTRUSION POROSIMETRY

In mercury intrusion porosimetry non-wetting mercury is used to gain information on the porous characteristics of solid materials. As a consequence of this non-wetting behaviour, higher pressures are required as the pores size decreases. In this way a broad range of pores can be measured starting from 4 nm (pressure = 430 MPa) up to 200 µm (vacuum), and therefore this technique is extremely suitable for materials showing broad distributions of pores or mainly larger pores. Prior to the analysis, vacuum degassing is used to remove moisture from the porous structure.

The low and high-pressure intrusion measurements are performed on the CE Instruments Pascal 140 and 440, respectively. The report consists of graphs on the intrusion and extrusion curve and the corresponding pore size distribution and data on pore volume and porosity