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| Introduction |
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| Surface chemistry is the study of processes that occur at the interface of two bulk phases. The bulk phases can be of the type solid-gas, solid-liquid, liquid-gas and liquid-liquid. There is no interface between gases because of their complete miscibility. The bulk phase can be solutions or pure compounds. |
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| The interface is usually a few molecules thick. One of the most important feature of the interface that affects processes is the surface area of the interface. The area of the interface depends on the size of the particles of the bulk phases. |
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| Many processes occur at the interface. They range from simple physical processes such as dissolution and evaporation to chemical reactions such as corrosion, heterogeneous catalysis and electrode processes. Surface processes such as filtration, adsorption on activated carbon, ion-exchange and reverse osmosis are used in water and waste water treatment. Hence, surface chemistry studies are important since they have many applications. |
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| In this chapter, features pertaining to surface phenomena are discussed. Features such as adsorption, catalysis, formation of colloids, emulsions and micelles and their uses are discussed. |
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