About Porosimetry.com

Porosimetry.com is an editorial reference site for the analytical measurement of pore structure in porous solids. It covers the three primary technique families — mercury intrusion porosimetry, gas adsorption (BET, BJH, and DFT analysis), and capillary flow porometry — together with the standards, comparisons, and calculators that practitioners use to choose between them and to interpret their results.

Who the site is for

The intended reader is a working scientist, engineer, or graduate student who needs a clear technical reference rather than marketing material. Typical visits come from people deciding which of MIP, BET, or CFP applies to a given material, double-checking how to apply a standard such as ISO 15901 or ASTM F316, or trying to interpret an isotherm shape, hysteresis loop, or intrusion curve.

The content assumes some familiarity with physical chemistry and materials characterization but does not require specialist training. Glossary entries and worked examples are provided where the terminology is dense.

Scope of coverage

The site is organized along four axes:

• Methods — one in-depth article per primary technique, covering the underlying physics, the relevant equations, instrumentation, sources of measurement error, and the standards that govern routine application.
• Comparisons — head-to-head pages addressing the most frequent method-selection questions: MIP versus gas adsorption, porosimetry versus porometry, and nitrogen versus argon as the adsorbate.
• Applications — one page per major industry where pore structure governs material performance, from battery electrodes to cementitious materials to filtration membranes.
• Tools — interactive calculators for the equations that appear most often in routine work: the Washburn relation for MIP, the linearized BET equation for surface area, and the Young–Laplace bubble-point relation for through-pore analysis.

Editorial approach

Articles are written to be self-contained: a reader should not need to leave the page to understand what the equations mean, when the assumptions break down, and how the practical measurement differs from the textbook description. Where a topic is genuinely controversial in the literature — for instance, the choice of adsorption versus desorption branch in BJH analysis — the article describes the trade-off rather than pretending one answer always applies.

The site does not publish primary research, market forecasts, or vendor reviews. Quoted standards (ISO, ASTM, IUPAC, API) are referenced by document number so the reader can consult the authoritative original. Where a parameter range or rule of thumb is given, it reflects general practice rather than a specific company's protocol.

What the site is not

Porosimetry.com is not a testing laboratory, an instrument vendor, a brokerage that books analytical services, or an accredited certification body. It does not own laboratory equipment and it does not perform measurements on submitted samples. The contact channel is for technical questions about the published material; commercial laboratory bookings should be addressed to an analytical service provider directly.

The site is also not a substitute for engineering or scientific judgment on regulated, safety-critical, or high-stakes decisions. Information here is general reference material; binding decisions should rely on accredited testing and on consultation with qualified specialists.

How content is produced

Each article is written and reviewed by people familiar with porosimetry instrumentation and the relevant standards. The methodology pages cite the governing ISO and ASTM documents by number; the comparison pages explain the differences in terms of the underlying physics rather than vendor-specific implementations. When a technique evolves — for example when the IUPAC physisorption recommendations were updated in 2015 — the affected articles are revisited.

"Last reviewed" dates appear on substantive pages so a reader can see when the content was last walked through against current practice. Smaller fixes — typos, broken links, clarifications — happen on a continuous basis and are not separately announced.

Standards and references used across the site

• ISO 15901 series — pore size distribution by mercury porosimetry (Part 1) and by gas adsorption (Part 2 and Part 3).
• ISO 9277 — specific surface area of solids by gas adsorption using the BET method.
• ASTM D4284 — pore volume distribution of catalysts and catalyst supports by mercury intrusion.
• ASTM F316 — pore size characteristics of membrane filters by bubble point and mean flow pore.
• IUPAC 2015 physisorption recommendations — isotherm types (I–VI) and hysteresis-loop classes (H1–H5).

Contact

Technical questions, corrections, and feedback can be sent to [email protected]. The full inquiry guidance — including the structure of a useful technical question — lives on the contact page.