Percolation, depinning, and avalanches in capillary condensation of gases in disordered porous solids

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical framework to understand hysteresis in gas condensation within disordered porous materials, highlighting the roles of out-of-equilibrium transitions and depinning phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a mean-field density functional theory approach to model hysteresis, revealing distinct filling and draining transition mechanisms in disordered porous solids.

Findings

Hysteresis loop morphology is influenced by out-of-equilibrium transitions.

Desorption can involve depinning and percolation-like processes.

The model explains differences between filling and draining behaviors.

Abstract

We propose a comprehensive theoretical description of hysteresis in capillary condensation of gases in mesoporous disordered materials. Applying mean-field density functional theory to a coarse-grained lattice-gas model, we show that the morphology of the hysteresis loops is influenced by out-of-equilibrium transitions that are different on filling and on draining. In particular, desorption may be associated to a depinning process and be percolation-like without explicit pore-blocking effects.