Pore connectivity and hysteresis in gas adsorption: A simple three-pore model

We present a simulation study to investigate the significance of connectivity on the adsorption isotherm, for a collection of connected pores. By examining different sequences of connectivity in a set of three cylindrical sections of different sizes, we have been able to obtain adsorption isotherms with a variety of shapes and sizes of hysteresis loop; none of which can be reproduced by combining isotherms of the individual pores with two open ends. We conclude that there is a need to re-examine the choice of kernel in the determination of pore size distributions for systems with interconnected pore spaces.