Nitrocellulose porosity - thermoporometry

Nitrocellulose porosity was investigated by thermoporometry, based on melting point depression of liquid in limited space. Strange behaviour of water-saturated nitrocellulose was observed, which consisted of melting peak shifting of some of liquid. Thermal resistance, connected with limited contact area of nitrocellulose walls and water, is supposed as the source of phenomenon. Water is unable to completely penetrate into pores as nitrocellulose is a hydrophobic material, though prolonged stirring or boiling of mixture improves saturation. Thus total pore volume cannot be estimated correctly. In spite of this pore radius was calculated from obtained DSC curves. The results show good consistency for the same nitrocellulose materials, which proves that thermoporometry is a useful method of nitrocellulose characterisation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.