Investigation of pore size and energy distributions by statistical physics formalism applied to agriculture products

•Investigation allowing to determine the distribution of PSD.•The radius of olive leaves is macrospores.•The distribution of energetically different sites deduces from PSD.•All desorption energy distributions have a Gaussian shape.

In this paper, we present a new investigation that allows determining the pore size distribution (PSD) in a porous medium. This PSD is achieved by using the desorption isotherms of four varieties of olive leaves. This is by the means of statistical physics formalism and Kelvin’s law. The results are compared with those obtained with scanning electron microscopy. The effect of temperature on the distribution function of pores has been studied. The influence of each parameter on the PSD is interpreted. A similar function of adsorption energy distribution, AED, is deduced from the PSD.