Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities

The sorption–desorption hysteresis observed in many nanoporous solids, at vapor pressures low enough for the liquid (capillary) phase of the adsorbate to be absent, has long been vaguely attributed to some sort of ‘pore collapse’. However, the pore collapse has never been documented experimentally a...

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Main Authors: Bazant, Martin Z., Bazant, Zdenek P.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Elsevier 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99231
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author Bazant, Martin Z.
Bazant, Zdenek P.
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Bazant, Martin Z.
Bazant, Zdenek P.
author_sort Bazant, Martin Z.
collection MIT
description The sorption–desorption hysteresis observed in many nanoporous solids, at vapor pressures low enough for the liquid (capillary) phase of the adsorbate to be absent, has long been vaguely attributed to some sort of ‘pore collapse’. However, the pore collapse has never been documented experimentally and explained mathematically. The present work takes an analytical approach to account for discrete molecular forces in the nanopore fluid and proposes two related mechanisms that can explain the hysteresis at low vapor pressure without assuming any pore collapse nor partial damage to the nanopore structure. The first mechanism, presented in Part I, consists of a series of snap-through instabilities during the filling or emptying of non-uniform nanopores or nanoscale asperities. The instabilities are caused by non-uniqueness in the misfit disjoining pressures engendered by a difference between the nanopore width and an integer multiple of the thickness of a monomolecular adsorption layer. The wider the pore, the weaker the mechanism, and it ceases to operate for pores wider than about 3 nm. The second mechanism, presented in Part II, consists of molecular coalescence, or capillary condensation, within a partially filled surface, nanopore or nanopore network. This general thermodynamic instability is driven by attractive intermolecular forces within the adsorbate and forms the basis for developing a unified theory of both mechanisms. The ultimate goals of the theory are to predict the fluid transport in nanoporous solids from microscopic first principles, determine the pore size distribution and internal surface area from sorption tests, and provide a way to calculate the disjoining pressures in filled nanopores, which play an important role in the theory of creep and shrinkage.
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spelling mit-1721.1/992312022-10-01T00:23:32Z Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities Bazant, Martin Z. Bazant, Zdenek P. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics Bazant, Martin Z. The sorption–desorption hysteresis observed in many nanoporous solids, at vapor pressures low enough for the liquid (capillary) phase of the adsorbate to be absent, has long been vaguely attributed to some sort of ‘pore collapse’. However, the pore collapse has never been documented experimentally and explained mathematically. The present work takes an analytical approach to account for discrete molecular forces in the nanopore fluid and proposes two related mechanisms that can explain the hysteresis at low vapor pressure without assuming any pore collapse nor partial damage to the nanopore structure. The first mechanism, presented in Part I, consists of a series of snap-through instabilities during the filling or emptying of non-uniform nanopores or nanoscale asperities. The instabilities are caused by non-uniqueness in the misfit disjoining pressures engendered by a difference between the nanopore width and an integer multiple of the thickness of a monomolecular adsorption layer. The wider the pore, the weaker the mechanism, and it ceases to operate for pores wider than about 3 nm. The second mechanism, presented in Part II, consists of molecular coalescence, or capillary condensation, within a partially filled surface, nanopore or nanopore network. This general thermodynamic instability is driven by attractive intermolecular forces within the adsorbate and forms the basis for developing a unified theory of both mechanisms. The ultimate goals of the theory are to predict the fluid transport in nanoporous solids from microscopic first principles, determine the pore size distribution and internal surface area from sorption tests, and provide a way to calculate the disjoining pressures in filled nanopores, which play an important role in the theory of creep and shrinkage. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant DMS-0948071) 2015-10-13T18:24:56Z 2015-10-13T18:24:56Z 2012-05 2012-04 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 00225096 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99231 Bazant, Zdenek P., and Martin Z. Bazant. “Theory of Sorption Hysteresis in Nanoporous Solids: Part I Snap-through Instabilities.” Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 60, no. 9 (September 2012): 1644–1659. en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2012.04.014 Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier Arxiv
spellingShingle Bazant, Martin Z.
Bazant, Zdenek P.
Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities
title Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities
title_full Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities
title_fullStr Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities
title_full_unstemmed Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities
title_short Theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids: Part I Snap-through instabilities
title_sort theory of sorption hysteresis in nanoporous solids part i snap through instabilities
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99231
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