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Abstract

The measurement of diffusivity within porous solids is vital for the characterization of materials, especially in heterogeneous catalysis and separation processes. Numerous methods have been developed to measure gas-phase diffusivities within materials. However, establishing correlations between the diffusivities and the properties of a material is challenging. Herein, we report a method for obtaining trends in gas-phase diffusivity of N₂ at 77 K within three different sets of mesoporous materials, disordered, ordered silica, and carbons-based materials. Synthesis procedures are reproducible and controlled precisely to achieve monodisperse particle size and defined pore size distributions. A standard physisorption device, Micromeritics 3Flex, is used to obtain the required transient data. These two aspects offer a suitable database of materials to identify trends and reduce the challenges associated with obtaining experimental data. A simplified model is fitted over the transient data with MATLAB to obtain empirical diffusivities used for trend analysis. The trends are based on a constant D_τ, an ensemble value representing various diffusion processes occurring during a transient uptake process. The analysis identifies several correlations between the diffusivity and properties of materials, such as type of pore structure, pore size, and the chemical nature of the material. Based on the principles reported, this study can be extended to other adsorptive molecules or different temperatures. The possibility of using standard sorption instrumentation will allow a broader user community to employ the reported methodology.