Adsorption-Induced Deformation in Porous Materials

Adsorption-induced deformation refers to the reversible strains and stresses generated in a porous solid when a fluid phase is taken up or expelled from its internal pore network. In micropores and mesopores, capillary condensation and desorption create substantial negative or positive pressures—often described in terms of Laplace or solvation pressures—that act on the pore walls and cause measurable contraction or expansion of the host matrix. Surface stress variations, including the so-called Bangham effect, further modulate these mechanical responses. The magnitude and sign of the deformation depend on pore size, geometry and surface chemistry, and may be anisotropic in hierarchically structured materials. Experimental methods such as dilatometry, in situ neutron or X-ray scattering and optical imaging have been combined with molecular simulations and continuum mechanics models to quantify strain isotherms, pore-load modulus and surface-stress contributions. These insights are central to applications ranging from gas separation in zeolites and hierarchical silica adsorbents to humidity-driven actuation in bioinspired devices, swelling of coal and shale in subsurface operations, and stress evolution in geological CO₂ sequestration.

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Adsorption-Induced Deformation in Porous Materials publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in adsorption-induced deformation in porous materials across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Adsorption stress: the internal pressure exerted by an adsorbed fluid on the pore walls, driving deformation of the solid matrix.

Laplace pressure: the pressure difference across a curved fluid meniscus in a pore, proportional to surface tension and inversely proportional to pore radius.

Solvation pressure: the normal component of pressure within the adsorbed phase acting on the solid surface, often used interchangeably with adsorption stress.

Bangham effect: the expansion of a porous solid upon adsorption due to changes in surface stress at the solid–fluid interface.

Pore-load modulus: a measure of the stiffness of a porous material defined as the ratio between applied adsorption-induced pressure and resulting strain.

Anisotropy: directional dependence of mechanical response, wherein deformation varies with orientation in structured porous solids.

References

1. Deformation dynamics of nanopores upon water imbibition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2024).
2. Adsorption-induced deformation of nanoporous materials—A review. Applied Physics Reviews (2017).
3. Adsorption-Induced Deformation of Hierarchically Structured Mesoporous SilicaEffect of Pore-Level Anisotropy. Langmuir (2017).
4. Elastocapillarity in nanopores: Sorption strain from the actions of surface tension and surface stress. Physical Review Materials (2018).
5. In Situ Small-Angle Neutron Scattering Investigation of Adsorption-Induced Deformation in Silica with Hierarchical Porosity. Langmuir (2019).
6. Mechanical Characterization of Hierarchical Structured Porous Silica by in Situ Dilatometry Measurements during Gas Adsorption. Langmuir (2019).
7. Humidity-driven deformation of ordered mesoporous silica films. Bioinspired Biomimetic and Nanobiomaterials (2014).
8. The pore-load modulus of ordered nanoporous materials with surface effects. AIP Advances (2016).