Porous structure of fibre networks formed by a foaming process: a comparative study of different characterization techniques.

Recent developments in making fibre materials using the foam-forming technology have raised a need to characterize the porous structure at low material density. In order to find an effective choice among all structure-characterization methods, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional techniques were used to explore the porous structure of foam-formed samples made with two different types of cellulose fibre. These techniques included X-ray microtomography, scanning electron microscopy, light microscopy, direct surface imaging using a CCD camera and mercury intrusion porosimetry.