2003/09/03 by Jean‐Louis Barrat, Barrat, Jean-Louis, Benoît Lefèvre +8 · 1 citation
Materials Science · #Block Copolymer Self-Assembly #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoporous Materials and Catalysis #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0309077
openalex publication_date 2003/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present experimental and theoretical results on intrusion-extrusion cycles of water in hydrophobic mesoporous materials, characterized by independent cylindrical pores. The intrusion, which takes place above the bulk saturation pressure, can be well described using a macroscopic capillary model. Once the material is saturated with water, extrusion takes place upon reduction of the externally applied pressure; Our results for the extrusion pressure can only be understood by assuming that the limiting extrusion mechanism is the nucleation of a vapour bubble inside the pores. A comparison of calculated and experimental nucleation pressures shows that a proper inclusion of line tension effects is necessary to account for the observed values of nucleation barriers. Negative line tensions of order 10-11 J.m-1 are found for our system, in reasonable agreement with other experimental estimates of this quantity.