Structural Characterization of a Mesoporous Material

Porous materials can have an enormous internal surface. They are used as catalysts, as molecular sieves, as adsorbents and in many more applications. Their ability to selectively adsorb molecules of certain size and shape is closely related to their internal pore size and geometry. SAXS is an ideal tool for the characterization of the structure and the pore size of such materials, i.e. the particle diameter D, the mean pore diameter d as well as the typical distance between the pores R can be determined. In this application note, a mesoporous material was studied with the SAXSpace system.