Determination of the connectivity of porous solids from nitrogen sorption measurements — II. Generalisation

Abstract An analysis method, based on percolation theory, was recently proposed for the determination of the connectivity of porous solids from nitrogen sorption measurements. In this paper, the method is improved and generalised. The main modifications are (i) the incorporation of a more realistic treatment of the desorption process, (ii) the adaptation of the method so that it can be used in conjunction with a class of widely-used methods (which are based on the Kelvin equation) for the determination of pore-size distributions, and (iii) the investigation of the effect of the assumed pore shape on the results of the analysis. The modified method is applied to a range of samples. The results of the analysis are used to predict effective diffusivities, using effective medium theory. The results suggest that the calculated effective diffusivities are relatively insensitive to the assumed pore shape.