IMAGE ANALYSIS CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGHLY ORIENTED FREEZE-DRYING POROUS MATERIALS

Image analysis has been used as a potential tool for the characterization of the texture of ultramacroporous foams prepared by freeze-drying. It has been shown that this technique actually provides valuable information on the structure of this kind of material. Image analysis of SEM micrographs of transverse sections at two different magnifications gave information on both the macroporosity (10 μm < width < 100 μm) and ultramacroporosity (width > 100 μm). Moreover, the foam anisotropy has been determined by image analysis of longitudinal sections.