Working at new manufacturing company in Ceramics. Use liquid ceramic slurry to coat and create layers, are now using new system that uses thin film/paper like ceramic. I need to come up with testing of system and realized porosity testing would be very useful due to shelf life, etc. Unfortunately, have never tested before. Is there anyone out there that could contribute to my project and suggest equipment or techniques to perform porosity testing? sheets are approximately sampled now at 5" by 8" sheets.

Working at new manufacturing company in Ceramics. Use liquid ceramic slurry to coat and create layers, are now using new system that uses thin film/paper like ceramic. I need to come up with testing of system and realized porosity testing would be very useful due to shelf life, etc. Unfortunately, have never tested before. Is there anyone out there that could contribute to my project and suggest equipment or techniques to perform porosity testing? sheets are approximately sampled now at 5" by 8" sheets.

Why not fall back to the basic Archimedes Principle to determine porosity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porosity)?

I have experience ( a long time ago) with the mercury method described in the article so thoughtfully provided by harry. Micromeritics used to make such a device, and we used it to determine surface area, which is related to porosity. There are some caveats, though.

First, the instrument uses mercury, which is a fairly nasty substance, but it can be contained.

Second, the test would require a dry sample, and you are using slurry. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it is a consideration.

I am not familiar with the nitrogen method, and I think it was in development while I was working more closely with the mercury device. That type of instrument may be worth considering as well.

Hope this helps.