Zeitschrift für Materialwissenschaften und Ingenieurwesen

On Some Irregularities of the Determination of the Surface Properties of Solid Materials

Abstract

Tayssir Hamieh

Inverse gas chromatography (IGC) at infinite dilution is one of the most used techniques to characterize the physicochemical and surface properties of solid substrates. The surface specific free energy of model organic molecules adsorbed on solid surfaces, as well as their dispersive component of the surface energy was determined by IGC technique since 1982. The specific surface enthalpy and entropy of adsorption of polar molecules derived from the determination of the variations of the specific free energy of interaction of such molecules with the solid particles as a function of the temperature. Using the concept of the donor and acceptor numbers of electrons of polar molecules, the acid base constants KA, KD of solid surfaces can be determined by an empirical relationship. Many methods and models were used in the literature to quantify the surface properties of solid materials. However, many irregularities were found when applying the different methods to various solid substrates. The conclusions concerning the dispersive surface energy and the acid base properties in Lewis terms of many solids revealed some errors committed by using the different models and methods of IGC.