Surface acoustic wave technique for the characterization of porous properties of microporous silicate thin films

Features of gas adsorption onto sol-gel derived microporous silicate thin films, for characterization of porous properties, are detailed using a surface acoustic wave (SAW) technique. Mass uptake and film effective modulus changes calculated from the SAW data are investigated in detail. The effects of stress and surface tension on the SAW sensor are calculated and found to be negligible in these experiments.; Transient behavior recorded during nitrogen adsorption at 77 K is discussed in the context of mass uptake and effective modulus contributions. The time constant associated with the effective modulus calculation is consistent with that of diffusivity of nitrogen into a 5A zeolite. Further calculations indicate that the transient behavior is not due to thermal effects.; A unique dual sensor SAW experiment to decouple the mass and effective modulus contributions to the frequency response was performed in conjunction with a Silicon beam-bending experiment. The beam-bending experiment results in a calculation of stress induced during adsorption of methanol on a microporous silicate thin film. The decoupled mass and effective modulus calculated from the SAW data have similar shaped isotherms, and are quite different from that of the stress developed in the Silicon beam. The total effective modulus change calculated from the SAW data is consistent with that calculated using Gassmann's equation.; The SAW system developed for this work included unique electronics and customized hardware which is suitable for work under vacuum and at temperatures from 77K to 473K. This unique setup is suitable for running thin film samples on a Micromeritics ASAP 2000 Gas Adsorption unit in automatic mode. This setup is also general enough to be compatible with a custom gas adsorption unit and the beam bending apparatus, both using standard vacuum assemblies.