A preliminary study on sclerofoam morphology.Étude préliminaire de la morphologie des mousses sclérosantes.

An original experimental approach has been proposed, in which micro-tomography and morphological techniques have been successfully used to investigate the possibility and the significance of a morphology characterization of sclerofoams. Several sclerofoams samples were prepared in different conditions and different concentrations of Polidocanolo and immediately quickly frozen in liquid N2 in order to avoid macro-crystals formation. Then, they were subjected to micro-tomography at the Tomolab facility of Elettra, Trieste. The 3D reconstructions of the internal structures of the foams were successively analyzed and morphological parameters such as number, dimensions and degree of isotropy of the bubble structures obtained could be assessed. The preliminary results obtained so far confirm that micro-tomography is a technique that can be successfully used to characterized the types of sclerofoam obtained with the different methods currently in use.