Deformation Dynamics of Nanopores upon Water imbibition: Optical, Gravimetric and Dilatometry experiments.

The datasets included in this work focus on the study of the imbibition dynamics of water in nanoporous Vycor glass. Specifically, this refers to the filling dynamics of water, driven by capillary forces, into a hydrophilic nanoporous Vycor glass sample (porous silica glass).

The samples (2) used in these experiments are cylindrical monoliths. Both are identical (mean pore size , porosity), differing only in length.

The experiments were designed to study capillary rise dynamics. Since Vycor glass is translucent, this can be directly observed by tracking the filling front via changes in the transparency of the samples (optical experiments). It can also be indirectly monitored by measuring properties of the sample that change proportionally to the filling front length. For this, we performed mass uptake experiments, measuring the changes in the mass of the sample during filling. We also used a high-precision dilatometer to measure changes in the length of the sample (strain) during imbibition (dilatometry).