Physical Adsorption Characterization of Nanoporous Materials

During recent years, major progress has been made in the understanding of the adsorption, pore condensation and hysteresis behavior of fluids in novel ordered nanoporous materials with well defined pore structure. This has led to major advances in the structural characterization by physical adsorption, also because of the development and availability of advanced theoretical procedures based on statistical mechanics (e.g., density functional theory, molecular simulation) which allows to describe adsorption and phase behavior of fluids in pores on a molecular level. Very recent improvements allow even to take into account surface geometrical in-homogeneity of the pore walls However, there are still many open questions concerning the structural characterization of more complex porous systems. Important aspects of the major underlying mechanisms associated with the adsorption, pore condensation and hysteresis behavior of fluids in micro-mesoporous materials are reviewed and their significance for advanced physical adsorption characterization is discussed.