Fitting approach to liquid–liquid displacement porosimetry based on the log-normal pore size distribution

• Log-normal PSD has been used to model LLDP characterization results.
• Fitting to experimental data is good leading to smooth curves with reasonable accordance in all LLDP parameters.
• Proposed technique allows for estimation of useful pore size parameters from reduced characterization experiments.

Liquid–liquid displacement porosimetry (LLDP) has been used to characterize several UF membranes in a wide range of molecular weight cut-offs (MWCO). A new method to convert porosimetric data into pore size distributions and related information has been developed based on assuming log-normal pore size distributions. The results of this are in good agreement with those from the customary data conversion algorithm (as derived by Grabar and Nikitine). The proposed method can also be used when a reduced number of experimental data points is available, leading to a significant reduction of data acquisition time needed to complete a reliable analysis.