Permeability and structure of resorcinol-formaldehyde gels

The permeability (D) of resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) gels was measured using a beam-bending technique. For gels made at various solids contents and with different catalyst contents, the permeabilities ranged over a factor of similar to 50; the pore radii inferred from D varied from similar to 3 to 30 nm. Pore radii obtained on RF aerogels using nitrogen desorption were severely affected by compression of the aerogel by capillary forces (resulting from the surface tension of liquid nitrogen). After correction for that effect, the desorption data were found to be in very good agreement with the pore sizes calculated from D.