Capillary condensation in one-dimensional irregular confinement

Gas Sorption Characterization of Porous Materials Employing a Statistical Theory for Bethe Lattices

In the present work, a recently developed statistical theory for adsorption and desorption processes in mesoporous solids, modeled by random Bethe lattices, has been applied to obtain pore size distributions and interpore connectivity from sorption isotherms in real random porous materials, employing a robust and validated methodology. Using the experimental adsorption-desorption N2 isotherms at 77.4 K on Vycor glass, a porous material with random pore structure, we demonstrate the solution of the inverse problem resulting in extracted pore size distribution and interpore connectivity, notably different from the predictions of earlier theories. The results presented are corroborated by the analysis of 3D digital images of reconstructed Vycor porous glass, showing excellent agreement between the predictions of geometric analysis and the new statistical theory.

Impact of Geometrical Disorder on Phase Equilibria of Fluids and Solids Confined in Mesoporous Materials

Porous solids used in practical applications often possess structural disorder over broad length scales. This disorder strongly affects different properties of the substances confined in their pore spaces. Quantifying structural disorder and correlating it with the physical properties of confined matter is thus a necessary step toward the rational use of porous solids in practical applications and process optimization. The present work focuses on recent advances made in the understanding of correlations between the phase state and geometric disorder in nanoporous solids. We overview the recently developed statistical theory for phase transitions in a minimalistic model of disordered pore networks: linear chains of pores with statistical disorder. By correlating its predictions with various experimental observations, we show that this model gives notable insight into collective phenomena in phase-transition processes in disordered materials and is capable of explaining self-consistently the majority of the experimental results obtained for gas-liquid and solid-liquid equilibria in mesoporous solids. The potentials of the theory for improving the gas sorption and thermoporometry characterization of porous materials are discussed.

Phase transitions in disordered mesoporous solids

Fluids confined in mesoporous solids exhibit a wide range of physical behavior including rich phase equilibria. While a notable progress in their understanding has been achieved for fluids in materials with geometrically ordered pore systems, mesoporous solids with complex pore geometries still remain a topic of active research. In this work we study phase transitions occurring in statistically disordered linear chains of pores with different pore sizes. By considering, quite generally, two phase change mechanisms, nucleation and phase growth, occurring simultaneously we obtain the boundary transitions and the scanning curves resulting upon reversing the sign of the evolution of the chemical potential at different points along the main transition branches. The results obtained are found to reproduces the key experimental observations, including the emergence of hysteresis and the scanning behavior. By deriving the serial pore model isotherm we suggest a robust framework for reliable structural analysis of disordered mesoporous solids.

A single-walker approach for studying quasi-nonergodic systems

The jump-walking Monte-Carlo algorithm is revisited and updated to study the equilibrium properties of systems exhibiting quasi-nonergodicity. It is designed for a single processing thread as opposed to currently predominant algorithms for large parallel processing systems. The updated algorithm is tested on the Ising model and applied to the lattice-gas model for sorption in aerogel at low temperatures, when dynamics of the system is critically slowed down. It is demonstrated that the updated jump-walking simulations are able to produce equilibrium isotherms which are typically hidden by the hysteresis effect characteristic of the standard single-flip simulations.

Effect of disorder on condensation in the lattice gas model on a random graph

The lattice gas model of condensation in a heterogeneous pore system, represented by a random graph of cells, is studied using an exact analytical solution. A binary mixture of pore cells with different coordination numbers is shown to exhibit two phase transitions as a function of chemical potential in a certain temperature range. Heterogeneity in interaction strengths is demonstrated to reduce the critical temperature and, for large-enough degreeS of disorder, divides the cells into ones which are either on average occupied or unoccupied. Despite treating the pore space loops in a simplified manner, the random-graph model provides a good description of condensation in porous structures containing loops. This is illustrated by considering capillary condensation in a structural model of mesoporous silica SBA-15.