Microporous Substructure of Porous Glasses: Dynamic and Equilibrium Approaches

Porous glasses produced by the leaching of two-phase alkali borosilicate glasses have been studied by dynamic and equilibrium methods for diagnostics of pore morphology. It has been detected the availability of microporous substructure with some kinds of adsorbing micropores of diameter 0.3–2 nm including ultramicropores of molecular size in porous glasses with transporting pores of mean diameter from 4 to 15 nm. The multimodal nanoporous structure of porous glasses detected by kinetic mass spectral method of gas diffusion diagnostics (DD-method) at low temperatures is consistent with the results obtained from analyzing equilibrium desorption isotherms of nitrogen, oxygen and argon at 77.5 K by different calculation techniques including an equilibrium method of gas desorption at low partial pressures (LPED-method). Micropore volume in porous glasses is equal to 6–18% from total pore volume. The dependence of nanoporous morphology of porous glasses on conditions of their production and composition has been established. The diffusion and equilibrium characteristics of different molecules (nitrogen, oxygen, argon) varying in molecule size and quadrupole moment value have been determined for primary and secondary porous substructures of porous glasses at liquid nitrogen temperature at the first time.