The mercury intrusion porosimetry technique is one of the most useful methods to investigate the porous structure of solid samples in a quantitative way. It provides reliable information about pore size/volume distribution, particle size distribution, bulk density and specific surface for most porous solids. These properties impact on aspects of material performance such as moisture movement, heat transfer and durability.

The Science

Mercury porosimetry analysis is the progressive intrusion of mercury into a porous structure under controlled pressures. From the pressure versus intrusion data, the instrument generates volume and size distributions using the Washburn equation.

The Instrumentation

The Materials and Engineering Research Institute is equipped with a mercury intrusion porosimeter PASCAL 140/240, which is capable of measuring pore size in the range of 116 µm to 0.0074 µm pore diameter and particles size in the range of 330 µm to 0.015 µm particle diameter.

Consultancy

This instrumentation plays an important role in many of our research and consultancy projects. Typical applications of mercury intrusion porosimetry for pore and particle size distribution analysis are

• building materials eg cement, concrete, stone, masonry
• ceramics and refractories
• polymers and resins
• geological applications including mining, oil and water industries
• pharmaceuticals
• filtration products
• furnace and kiln design and manufacture

To find out more services we can provide please submit your enquiry.

Who to contact

For more information about mercury intrusion porosimetry please contact Dr Olalekan Ojedokun.