MF-DFT and experimental investigations of the origins of hysteresis in mercury porosimetry of silica materials.

In order to be able to make a proper interpretation of mercury porosimetry data, to obtain a structural characterization of a porous solid, a full understanding of the causes of hysteresis in mercury porosimetry is required. Several different theories have previously been proposed, but it is still difficult to make a priori predictions of the level of hysteresis anticipated. In this work, the effect of the degree of smaller scale surface roughness on the hysteresis width has been studied using mean-field density functional simulations and the results obtained confirmed by experiments on silica materials.