bulk density and water absorption of fired
samples were estimated using the Archimedes method. As
stated, mercury intrusion porosimetry was also used to characterize the pore size and its distribution. This technique only
allows the detection of pores with diameters between 360 mm
and 5.5 nm, for respectively, minimum and maximum intrusion
pressure. In this work, pores with sizes higher than 360 mm are
expected due to the particle size of the pore forming agents.
Thus, by itself that technique is insufficient to characterize the
pore morphology, and the analysis was complemented through
optical microscopy. This technique can provide a detailed twodimensional picture of the pores, allowing the measurement of
their number and size (individual and total area)