How dense is the gas adsorbed in nanopores?
Résumé
Unlike macroscopic objects, any system of nanometric size shows characteristics that strongly depend on its sizeand geometric form. It is mainly because the major part of atoms (or molecules) of nano-object is located at itssurface, and their cohesive energy is smaller than for the atoms in the bulk. Here we show that when a fluid isconfined in nano-volume, delimited by non-attractive pore walls, its density is heterogeneous, in particular closeto the pore wall, and, on average, smaller than the density of bulk fluid. This effect progressively weakens whenthe pore size increases, and totally disappears for pores larger than 5 nm. The reported observation has nontrivialinfluence on evaluation of total and excess amount of fluid adsorbed in nanopores, as these quantities aretraditionally calculated assuming the known – and homogeneous –density of the bulk fluid. Additionally, wepropose a new method of the estimations of the accessible pore volume, based on the analysis of the density ofconfined fluid. The right estimation of both: pore volume and gas density is essential for quantitative interpretationof experimental adsorption isotherms: evaluation of pore size distribution and of the adsorbed amount.Although we analyze these problems taking an example of hydrogen at 77 K, our conclusions are general andapply to any fluid confined in nanopores.
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