Pore Processing Comparison of W615
In order to support the idea that RTP treatment does not change membrane pore characteristics (as shown by Anant in the rhodamine diffusion study) I processed TEM samples that were not treated, RTPed in Ar, for 5 minutes at 800C, and RTPed in O2 at 800C for 5 minutes (I believe this was not a puff of O2 but rather ran for the entire 5 minutes) using the Image Processor. The results are shown below.
There is a slight difference in cutoff and porosity between the non-treated samples, likely due to their different positions. Both RTPed samples fall between the non-treated samples for porosity, with mean pore size and cut off increasing very slightly. This may be a result of different thresholding removing more of the small “pores”, as in the histograms the smaller pores are less in number for RTPed samples compared to non-RTPed samples. It is also not surprising there is a small difference in the cutoffs, as these are all different samples. Overall, I feel that this is indication that RTP treatment does not change the pores significantly.