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THE SIR ERIC RIDEAL LECTURE
T H E SIR E R I C R I D E A L
LECTURE
ADSORPTION FROM SOLUTION Douglas H. Everett Department of Physical Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, U.K.
INTRODUCTION This lecture surveys some of the more significant advances made during the last twenty years, in the study of adsorption from solution by solids. John Kipling's book (1), published in 1965, gives a very full account of progress up to the early 1960 s, and it was about that time that, largely as a result of discussions with him, I became interested in liquid/solid systems. His book shows that, despite the recognised importance of adsorption phenomena, and the extensive measurements made during the first half of this century largely on systems of practical interest, rather limited progress had been made towards a fundamental understanding of adsorption from solution. On the experimental side this was in part because the importance of working with well-characterised surfaces was insufficiently appreciated, and partly because the experimental techniques were of inadequate precision to enable any detailed theories to be tested. It is, however, surprising that theoretical studies of the solid/liquid interface were neglected since the thermodynamics of a simple model of the vapour/solution interface had been formulated in 1932 by Butler (2) and developed by several authors (3). Extension to the liquid/solid interface was not made until much later (4) even though this involves no major new concepts other than consideration of the added contributions to the energy of the system from interactions between the solid and molecules in the liquid phase. The last two decades have seen major progress in both the range and significance of experimental work and in its theoretical T
LECTURE
ADSORPTION FROM SOLUTION Douglas H. Everett Department of Physical Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, U.K.
INTRODUCTION This lecture surveys some of the more significant advances made during the last twenty years, in the study of adsorption from solution by solids. John Kipling's book (1), published in 1965, gives a very full account of progress up to the early 1960 s, and it was about that time that, largely as a result of discussions with him, I became interested in liquid/solid systems. His book shows that, despite the recognised importance of adsorption phenomena, and the extensive measurements made during the first half of this century largely on systems of practical interest, rather limited progress had been made towards a fundamental understanding of adsorption from solution. On the experimental side this was in part because the importance of working with well-characterised surfaces was insufficiently appreciated, and partly because the experimental techniques were of inadequate precision to enable any detailed theories to be tested. It is, however, surprising that theoretical studies of the solid/liquid interface were neglected since the thermodynamics of a simple model of the vapour/solution interface had been formulated in 1932 by Butler (2) and developed by several authors (3). Extension to the liquid/solid interface was not made until much later (4) even though this involves no major new concepts other than consideration of the added contributions to the energy of the system from interactions between the solid and molecules in the liquid phase. The last two decades have seen major progress in both the range and significance of experimental work and in its theoretical T