A Pioneer in the Study of Porous Materials: A Short Appreciation of the Work of David Nicholson

Abstract

David Nicholson's long-standing interest in the properties of porous materials appears to date back to his PhD work on the thermal decomposition of oxalates, which he undertook at Salford with the late David Dollimore. He evidently saw the opportunity to bring some mathematical rigour to bear on this rather messy area of research by making one of the first attempts to model the relationship between the development of surface area and the kinetics of thermal decomposition [1].