Abstract
An adsorption isotherm for a heterogeneous surface is described on the basis of a multi-site occupancy model followed by a group-contribution assumption. Equations of single- and multi-component adsorptions are derived for systems of molecules consisting of several functional groups and a surface composed of active sites of different energies interacting with the groups independently. The isotherm equation reduces to the expression derived by Sparnaay in the special case where a molecule occupies one site of the surface.
The theory is applied to adsorption equilibria for systems of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide on Molecular Sieves 5A and 10X. Correlations of single-component isotherms are excellent for nitrogen and oxygen and fairly good for carbon monoxide; predictions of adsorption isotherms of binary gas mixtures are made satisfactorily by means of parameters determined from the best fit to each single-component isotherm.
