Small Angle Neutron Scattering is a powerful technique for investigating porous structures. It has the major advantage that the angle the neutrons are scattered through is inversely proportional to the size of the structure that is causing the scattering. Thus in principle, if we know the proportionality constant, we have a direct measurement of pore size.

In practice we need to model the porous structure, to predict the scattering we would see, to obtain the scaling constant. I have done preliminary studies for sol-gel silicas, in which I obtain remarkably close agreement with gas adsorption (and hence NMR Cryoporometry) for pores larger than 30nm, but much work remains to be done to fully understand the scattering from porous silicas, carbons and clays, to name but a few systems.

We have also made extensive study of the changes in the properties of liquids confined in small pores.