Model pore sizes

A microscopic description characterizes the structure of the pores. The objective of a pore-structure analysis is to provide a description that relates to the macroscopic or bulk flow properties. The major bulk properties that need to be correlated with pore description or characterization are the four basic parameters porosity, permeability, tortuosity and connectivity. In studying different samples of the same medium, it becomes apparent that the number of pore sizes, shapes, orientations and interconnections are enormous. Due to this complexity, pore-structure description is most often a statistical distribution of apparent pore sizes. This distribution is apparent because to convert measurements to pore sizes one must resort to models that provide average or model pore sizes. A common approach to defining a characteristic pore size distribution is to model the porous medium as a bundle of straight cylindrical or rectangular capillaries (refer to Figure 2). The diameters of the model capillaries are defined on the basis of a convenient distribution function. 

Figure 1. Simulated isotherms for models of G3. adsorption x desorption (uniform porosity) o desorption (randomised pore size, uniform porosity) + desorption (spin density image porosity). Macroscopic model pore size allocated from T, image except where stated.

Figure 2.2. Model pore size distributions that represent bimodal porous structures in CCLs, calculated with Eq. (2.2) [25]. The three distributions posses the same total porosity but varying volume portions of primary and secondary pores. The equilibrium capillary radius, is shown for the specified operating conditions. Values of the corresponding liquid water saturations (areas under the distribution functions within the grey box) are given.

However, the model is sufficiently advanced to allow it to be used constructively to compare and contrast other models. A passing note is that the final stages of modeling pore-size distributions of microporous carbons are some distance away from being realized. 

At the present time there exist no flux relations wich a completely sound cheoretical basis, capable of describing transport in porous media over the whole range of pressures or pore sizes. All involve empiricism to a greater or less degree, or are based on a physically unrealistic representation of the structure of the porous medium. Existing models fall into two main classes in the first the medium is modeled as a network of interconnected capillaries, while in the second it is represented by an assembly of stationary obstacles dispersed in the gas on a molecular scale. The first type of model is closely related to the physical structure of the medium, but its development is hampered by the lack of a solution to the problem of transport in a capillary whose diameter is comparable to mean free path lengths in the gas mixture. The second type of model is more tenuously related to the real medium but more tractable theoretically. 

Despite the fact Chat there are no analogs of void fraction or pore size in the model, by varying the proportion of dust particles dispersed among the gas molecules it is possible to move from a situation where most momentum transfer occurs in collisions between pairs of gas molecules, Co one where the principal momentum transfer is between gas molecules and the dust. Thus one might hope to obtain at least a physically reasonable form for the flux relations, over the whole range from bulk diffusion to Knudsen streaming. 

The relation between the dusty gas model and the physical structure of a real porous medium is rather obscure. Since the dusty gas model does not even contain any explicit representation of the void fraction, it certainly cannot be adjusted to reflect features of the pore size distributions of different porous media. For example, porous catalysts often show a strongly bimodal pore size distribution, and their flux relations might be expected to reflect this, but the dusty gas model can respond only to changes in the... 

The simplest way of introducing Che pore size distribution into the model is to permit just two possible sizes--Tnlcropores and macropotes--and this simple pore size distribution is not wholly unrealistic, since pelleted materials are prepared by compressing powder particles which are themselves porous on a much smaller scale. The small pores within the powder grains are then the micropores, while the interstices between adjacent grains form the macropores. An early and well known model due to Wakao and Smith [32] represents such a material by the Idealized structure shown in Figure 8,2,... 

Of course, these shortcomings of the Wakao-Smith flux relations induced by the use of equations (8.7) and (8.8) can be removed by replacing these with the corresponding dusty gas model equations, whose validity is not restricted to isobaric systems. However, since the influence of a strongly bidisperse pore size distribution can now be accounted for more simply within the class of smooth field models proposed by Feng and Stewart [49], it is hardly worthwhile pursuing this."... 

The pore size distribution function (a) appears parametrically in the flux relations of Feng and Stewart, so their models certainly cannot be completely predictive in nature unless this distribution is known. It is... 

Hugo s approach can be extended without difficulty to apply throughout the whole range of pore sizes, but to accomplish this a specific and complete flux model must be used. To be definite we will assume that the dusty gas model is adequate, but the same reasoning could be applied to certain other models if necessary. The relevant flux relations are now equations (5.4). Applied to the radial flux components In one of our three simple geometries they take the form... 

It must always be borne in mind that when capillary condensation takes place during the course of isotherm determination, the pore walls are already covered with an adsorbed him, having a thickness t determined by the value of the relative pressure (cf. Chapter 2). Thus capillary condensation occurs not directly in the pore itself but rather in the inner core (Fig. 3.7). Consequently the Kelvin equation leads in the first instance to values of the core size rather than the pore size. The conversion of an r value to a pore size involves recourse to a model of pore shape, and also a knowledge of the angle of contact 0 between the capillary condensate and the adsorbed film on the walls. The involvement of 0 may be appreciated by consideration... 

In calculations of pore size from the Type IV isotherm by use of the Kelvin equation, the region of the isotherm involved is the hysteresis loop, since it is here that capillary condensation is occurring. Consequently there are two values of relative pressure for a given uptake, and the question presents itself as to what is the significance of each of the two values of r which would result from insertion of the two different values of relative pressure into Equation (3.20). Any answer to this question calls for a discussion of the origin of hysteresis, and this must be based on actual models of pore shape, since a purely thermodynamic approach cannot account for two positions of apparent equilibrium. 

In the pioneer work of Foster the correction due to film thinning had to be neglected, but with the coming of the BET and related methods for the evaluation of specific surface, it became possible to estimate the thickness of the adsorbed film on the walls. A number of procedures have been devised for the calculation of pore size distribution, in which the adsorption contribution is allowed for. All of them are necessarily somewhat tedious and require close attention to detail, and at some stage or another involve the assumption of a pore model. The model-less method of Brunauer and his colleagues represents an attempt to postpone the introduction of a model to a late stage in the calculations. 

These procedures proposed by Dubinin and by Stoeckli arc, as yet, in the pioneer stage. Before they can be regarded as established as a means of evaluating pore size distribution, a wide-ranging study is needed, involving model micropore systems contained in a variety of chemical substances. The relationship between the structural constant B and the actual dimensions of the micropores, together with their distribution, would have to be demonstrated. The micropore volume would need to be evaluated independently from the known structure of the solid, or by the nonane pre-adsorption method, or with the aid of a range of molecular probes. 

The models of Matranga, Myers and Glandt [22] and Tan and Gubbins [23] for supercritical methane adsorption on carbon using a slit shaped pore have shown the importance of pore width on adsorbate density. An estimate of the pore width distribution has been recognized as a valuable tool in evaluating adsorbents. Several methods have been reported for obtaining pore size distributions, (PSDs), some of which are discussed below. 

As described above, the code "SIFTING" requires several microstructural inputs in order to ealculate a failure probability distribution. We are thus able to assess the physieal soundness of the Burchell model by determining the change in the predicted distribution when microstructural input parameters, such as particle or pore size, are varied in the "SIFTING" code. Each microstructural input parameter... 

Modeling the pore size in terms of a probability distribution function enables a mathematical description of the pore characteristics. The narrower the pore size distribution, the more likely the absoluteness of retention. The particle-size distribution represented by the rectangular block is the more securely retained, by sieve capture, the narrower the pore-size distribution. 

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