Mercury Porosimeters
The new PASCAL line
Following on from the successful PORO 2000 and 4000 instruments, the PASCAL instruments have introduced a new level of automation and analytical quality. The mercury porosimetry technique is one of the most useful methods to investigate the porous structure of solid samples in a quantitative way. It provides reliable information about pore size/volume distribution, bulk and apparent density and specific surface for most porous materials, regardless of their nature and shape. Mercury porosimetry analysis is based on the intrusion of mercury into the solid material porous structure under controlled pressurization. The pressurization procedure is critical to the accuracy and speed of the analysis because a certain equilibrium time is required for the mercury to fill pores at each pressure. This depends on the external pore access diameter and on the shape and complexity of the pore geometry. In principle, it is impossible to know which pressure rate is the most suitable for an unknown sample because an excessively high pressurization rate gives wrong results since the pores are not completely filled at the corresponding real intrusion pressure. On the contrary a low pressurization speed wastes valuable laboratory time.
Pascal fits your sample
The solution is the Pressurization by Automatic Speed-up and Continuous Adjustment Logic, or, in short, PASCAL, a new operating principle developed by the Microstructure department of ThermoFinnigan Italy and used in the new generation of automatic mercury porosimeters of the Pascal series. The PASCAL method automatically determines the correct pressurization speed according to the presence of pores and to the real penetration rate of mercury into the pores, thereby eliminating dead times during the analysis. The PASCAL method combines all the benefits in one system:
- Optimum information quality at every speed
- Minimum analysis time
- Highest resolution
Pascal does it faster than ever!
The pressurization starts 'softly' and, if no pores are detected, the speed of pressurization increases quickly to a maximum fixed speed. Nine speed characteristics are available covering different application fields and analytical purposes. When a speed from 1 to 9 is selected, the maximum speed is function of the actual pressure detected over the sample according to a matrix of values developed by the Microstructure staff; the higher is the pressure the higher is the maximum pressurization speed allowed.
When the mercury begins to penetrate into the porous structure of the sample, the pressurization immediately slows down but without stopping completely. The acceleration and deceleration of the pumping system are properly balanced to assure exactly the correct equilibrium time for the complete penetration of mercury into pores showing the same access size. This method, therefore, allows to measure correctly the pore volume at the real penetration pressure, which is directly related to the pore size, while eliminating dead times.
The PASCAL Products
Pascal 140 |
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Pascal 240 |
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Pascal 440 |
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