Limit Models of Pore Space Structure of Porous Materials for Determination of Limit Pore Size Distributions Based on Mercury Intrusion Data

Abstract

This paper proposes the application of capillary and chain random models of pore space structure for determination of limit pore diameter distributions of porous materials, based on the mercury intrusion curves. Both distributions determine the range in which the pore diameter distribution of the investigated material occurs and defines the degree of inaccuracy of the method based on the mercury intrusion data caused by the indeterminacy of the sample shape and its pore space architecture. We derived equations describing the quasi-static process of mercury intrusion into the porous layer and porous ball with a random chain pore space structure and analysed the influence of the model parameters on the mercury intrusion curves. It was shown that the distribution of link length in the chain model of the pore space, random location of chain capillaries in the sample and the length distribution of the capillaries do not influence significantly the intrusion process. Therefore, a simple model of the mercury intrusion into the layer is proposed in which chain links of the pore space have random diameters and constant length. This model is used as a basic model of the intrusion process into a sample of any shape and size and with homogeneous and isotropic chain pore space architecture. The thickness of the layer then represents the mean length of chain capillaries in the sample. It was also proved that the capillary and chain models of pore space architecture are limit models of the network model identified in this paper with the pore architecture of the investigated sample. This justifies the application of both models for determination of limit cumulative distributions of pore diameters in porous materials based on the mercury intrusion data. Keywords Mercury porosimetry • Capillary potential curve • Chain and capillary models of pore structure • Limit pore diameter distributions B M.

Numerical porosimetry: Evaluation and comparison of yield stress fluids method, mercury intrusion porosimetry and pore network modelling approaches

“…At the present time, Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP) is the reference experimental method to obtain the PSD of dry samples of porous media ( Van Brakel, 1981 ;León and León, 1998 ;Giesche, 2006., Minagawa et al, 2008Muller and Scrivener, 2017 ;Salejova et al, 2011 ;Cieszko et al, 2019 ). Some substantial benefits of this extensively used technique include the relatively fast measurements, the possibility of covering a large range of pore sizes, i.e., from 10 −9 up to 10 −3 m ( Zhang et al, 2016 ) and the richness of accessible databases.…”

“…Other techniques are also available for the determination of PSD, including nitrogen adsorption method, water desorption porosimetry ( Rouquerol et al, 2012 ;Bultreys et al, 2016 ), and NMR methods ( Coates et al, 1999 ;Arns, 2004 ). Nevertheless, the preparation of the samples is highly elaborated in the adsorption methods and proper interpretation of the NMR measurements require accurate knowledge of the properties of both the skeleton and the fluid in the pore space ( Cieszko et al, 2019 ). Also, the use of a set of different porosimetry techniques is the appropriate means to characterize the PSDs of porous media having an extremely wide range of pore sizes ( Bultreys et al, 2016 ), such as tight reservoir rocks , porous building materials ( Roel et al, 2001 ), some types of sandstones ( Tsakiroglou and Payatakes, 20 0 0 ) and shales ( Chen et al, 2018 ;Alfi et al, 2019 ).…”

Application of Non-toxic Yield Stress Fluids Porosimetry Method and Pore-Network Modelling to Characterize the Pore Size Distribution of Packs of Spherical Beads

“…Nevertheless, such axial variation remains hardly accessible as an input to the method without resorting to auxiliary measurements. It should be noted that the capillary-bundle model is also used in most porosimetry techniques, such as MIP (Cieszko et al 2019) or nitrogen porosimetry (Pomonis and Margellou 2018).…”

“…It should be noted that the PSD provided by MIP is volume-weighted, as it deines the volume fraction of pores that are accessible through pore openings of a given size (Cieszko et al 2019). For each pack of spheres, simulations are performed over a range of pressure values.…”

“…soil remediation, CO 2 sequestration, oil and gas industry or geothermal energy generation. Nowadays, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) is the standard technique of experimental determination of PSD (Giesche 2006;León y León 1998;Cieszko et al 2019), due to the brief duration of the tests and the wide range of accessible pore sizes, i.e. ~ 1 nm to 1 mm (Zhang et al 2016).…”