Immersional Heats and the Nature of Solid Surfaces

Abstract

Publisher Summary Of the various calorimetric approaches to the measurement of interaction heats, the measurements of the heats of immersion of fine powders in liquids are the simplest and most highly developed both from the technical and theoretical points of view. This chapter discusses the theory and applications of immersional heats. Heats of immersion are usually small exothermic quantities of the order of magnitude of heats of adsorption but are quite significant. The number of purposes to which immersional studies can be applied are (1) to obtain fundamental information concerning the interactions of surfaces with adsorbate molecules, particularly where other techniques are not suitable, (2) to rate the polarity of solid surfaces from their heats of immersion in simple organic liquids having different peripheral dipole moments, (3) to measure the site energy distribution or other surface properties of powders by measuring the heats of immersion as a function of the amount of preadsorbed wetting liquid, and (4) to study the nature and extent of solution adsorption.