3. Mercury Porosimetry

This chapter first explains the basic underlying theory for the mercury porosimetry technique. It then discusses some experimental issues not normally covered in any length in manuals for commercially available apparatus, particularly how data analysis changes depending upon the mechanical properties of the sample studied. The next section then describes the range of different sorts of experiments that can be performed with a commercial porosimeter, how the data can be analysed, and the types of void space descriptors that can be obtained. It will be seen that mercury porosimetry can provide information on more than just exterior pore neck size distributions but also surface area, pore network connectivity and degree of spatial heterogeneity. It will also be shown how porosimetry can be made an absolute rather than a relative measure of pore sizes.