2003/06/11 by F. Detcheverry, François Detcheverry, E. Kierlik +4
Chemistry · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Aerogels and thermal insulation #Glass properties and applications #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.stat-mech #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.68.061504
19 figures
arxiv created 2003/06/11 · openalex publication_date 2003/12/17 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We apply local mean-field (i.e., density functional) theory to a lattice model of a fluid in contact with a dilute, disordered gel network. The gel structure is described by a diffusion-limited cluster aggregation model. We focus on the influence of porosity on both the hysteretic and the equilibrium behavior of the fluid as one varies the chemical potential at low temperature. We show that the shape of the hysteresis loop changes from smooth to rectangular as the porosity increases and that this change is associated with disorder-induced out-of-equilibrium phase transitions that differ in adsorption and in desorption. Our results provide insight in the behavior of 4He in silica aerogels.