Nitrogen adsorption on silica xerogels or the odd look of a t plot

Nitrogen adsorption in some silica xerogels leads to t plots that cannot be interpreted by the occurrence of capillary condensation or by the filling of micropores. Their particular appearance stems from the unique columnar structure of these samples at the nanometer scale, by which the adsorbent surface has a positive curvature. A standard thermodynamic approach allows the phenomenon to be exploited to characterize the samples.