Role of the Number of Adsorption Sites and Adsorption Dynamics of Diffusing Particles in a Confined Liquid with Langmuir Kinetics

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the effect of the number of available adsorption sites for diffusing particles in a liquid confined between walls where the adsorption (desorption) phenomena occur. We formulate and numerically solve a model for particles governed by Fickian’s law of diffusion, where the dynamics at the surfaces obey the Langmuir kinetic equation. The ratio between the available number of adsorption sites and the number of total particles are used as a control parameter. The investigation is carried out in terms of characteristic times of the system for different initial configurations, as well as the cases of identical or non-identical surfaces. We calculate the bulk and surface densities dynamics, as well as the variance of the system, and demonstrate that the number of sites affects the bulk, surface distributions, and diffusive regimes.