Modeling elastic properties of Vycor glass saturated with liquid and solid adsorbates

Modeling patchy saturation of fluids in nanoporous media probed by ultrasound and optics

Nanoporous materials provide high surface area per unit mass and are capable of fluids adsorption. While the measurements of the overall amount of fluid adsorbed by a nanoporous sample are straightforward, probing the spatial distribution of fluids is nontrivial. We consider literature data on adsorption and desorption of fluids in nanoporous glasses reported along with the measurements of ultrasonic wave propagation. We analyze these using the so-called dynamic equivalent medium approach, which is based on Biot's theory of dynamic poroelasticity with coefficients that are continuous random functions of position. When further constrained by optical scattering data for similar systems, the calculations show that on adsorption the characteristic patch size is of the order of 100 pore diameters, while on desorption the patch size is comparable to the sample size. Our analysis suggests that one can employ ultrasound to probe the uniformity of the spatial distribution of fluids in nanoporous materials.

Ultrasonic study of water adsorbed in nanoporous glasses

Thermodynamic properties of fluids confined in nanopores differ from those observed in the bulk. To investigate the effect of nanoconfinement on water compressibility, we perform water sorption experiments on two nanoporous glass samples while concomitantly measuring the speed of longitudinal and shear ultrasonic waves in these samples. These measurements yield the longitudinal and shear moduli of the water-laden nanoporous glass as a function of relative humidity that we utilize in the Gassmann theory to infer the bulk modulus of the confined water. This analysis shows that the bulk modulus (inverse of compressibility) of confined water is noticeably higher than that of the bulk water at the same temperature. Moreover, the modulus exhibits a linear dependence on the Laplace pressure. The results for water, which is a polar fluid, agree with previous experimental and numerical data reported for nonpolar fluids. This similarity suggests that irrespective of intermolecular forces, confined fluids are stiffer than bulk fluids. Accounting for fluid stiffening in nanopores may be important for accurate interpretation of wave propagation measurements in fluid-filled nanoporous media, including in petrophysics, catalysis, and other applications, such as in porous materials characterization.