ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES FOR MERCURY INTRUSION POROSIMETRY.

Abstract

The mercury intrusion method involves submerging a porous material in mercury and then applying pressure to the mercury. When a sufficient pressure is reached, the mercury will enter the pores of the material. The size of the intruded pores is related to the pressure causing the intrusion and the volume of the intruded pores is the volume of mercury forced into them. If this process is continued over a range of pressures, the result is a distribution of the pore volume of the material with respect to its pores sizes, i. e. , a pore size distribution. This paper describes the important experimental considerations that go into an accurate determination of the pore size distribution of a material using mercury intrusion.