BET-equation

Because of their prevalence in physical adsorption studies on high-energy, powdered solids, type II isotherms are of considerable practical importance. Bmnauer, Emmett, and Teller (BET) [39] showed how to extent Langmuir s approach to multilayer adsorption, and their equation has come to be known as the BET equation. The derivation that follows is the traditional one, based on a detailed balancing of forward and reverse rates. 

The basic assumption is that the Langmuir equation applies to each layer, with the added postulate that for the first layer the heat of adsorption Q may have some special value, whereas for all succeeding layers, it is equal to Qu, the heat of condensation of the liquid adsorbate. A furfter assumption is that evaporation and condensation can occur only from or on exposed surfaces. As illustrated in Fig. XVII-9, the picture is one of portions of uncovered surface 5o, of surface covered by a single layer 5, by a double-layer 52. and so on.f The condition for equilibrium is taken to be that the amount of each type of surface reaches a steady-state value with respect to the next-deeper one. Thus for 5o 

Although the preceding derivation is the easier to follow, the BET equation also may be derived from statistical mechanics by a procedure similar to that described in the case of the Langmuir equation [41,42]. 

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This is useful since c can be estimated by means of the BET equation (see Section XVII-5). A number of more or less elaborate variants of the preceding treatment of lateral interaction have been proposed. Thus, Kiselev and co-workers, in their very extensive studies of physical adsorption, have proposed an equation of the form... 

The BET equation filled an annoying gap in the interpretation of adsorption isotherms, and at the time of its appearance in 1938 it was also hailed as a general method for obtaining surface areas from adsorption data. The equation can be put in the form... 

The very considerable success of the BET equation stimulated various investigators to consider modifications of it that would correct certain approximations and give a better fit to type II isotherms. Thus if it is assumed that multilayer formation is limited to n layers, perhaps because of the opposing walls of a capillary being involved, one... 

Equation XVII-78 turns out to ht type II adsorption isotherms quite well—generally better than does the BET equation. Furthermore, the exact form of the potential function is not very critical if an inverse square dependence is used, the ht tends to be about as good as with the inverse-cube law, and the equation now resembles that for a condensed him in Table XVII-2. Here again, quite similar equations have resulted from deductions based on rather different models. 

As with the BET equation, a number of modihcations of Eqs. XVII-77 or XVn-79 have been proposed, for example Ref. 71. FHH-type equations go to inhnite him thickness (i.e., bulk liquid), as P - F and this cannot be the case if the liquid does not wet the solid, and Adamson [72] proposed... 

Brunauer (see Refs. 136-138) defended these defects as deliberate approximations needed to obtain a practical two-constant equation. The assumption of a constant heat of adsorption in the first layer represents a balance between the effects of surface heterogeneity and of lateral interaction, and the assumption of a constant instead of a decreasing heat of adsorption for the succeeding layers balances the overestimate of the entropy of adsorption. These comments do help to explain why the model works as well as it does. However, since these approximations are inherent in the treatment, one can see why the BET model does not lend itself readily to any detailed insight into the real physical nature of multilayers. In summary, the BET equation will undoubtedly maintain its usefulness in surface area determinations, and it does provide some physical information about the nature of the adsorbed film, but only at the level of approximation inherent in the model. Mainly, the c value provides an estimate of the first layer heat of adsorption, averaged over the region of fit. 

Plot the data according to the BET equation and calculate Vm and c, and the specific surface area in square meters per gram. 

When plotted according to the linear form of the BET equation, data for the adsorption of N2 on Graphon at 77 K give an intercept of 0.004 and a slope of 1.7 (both in cubic centimeters STP per gram). Calculate E assuming a molecular area of 16 for N2. Calculate also the heat of adsorption for the first layer (the heat of condensation of N2 is 1.3 kcal/mol). Would your answer for Vm be much different if the intercept were taken to be zero (and the slope the same) Comment briefly on the practical significance of your conclusion. 

Consider the case of the BET equation with c = 1. Calculate for this case the heat of adsorption for the process ... 

Two parameters must be measured to apply the BET equation, the pressure at the sample and the amount adsorbed at this pressure. There are tlnee conmron methods for measuring the amount of gas adsorbed, called the volumetric method, the gravimetric method and the dynamic method, of which the volumetric method is the connnonest [21],... 

To obtain the monolayer capacity from the isotherm, it is necessary to interpret the (Type II) isotherm in quantitative terms. A number of theories have been advanced for this purpose from time to time, none with complete success. The best known of them, and perhaps the most useful in relation to surface area determination, is that of Brunauer, Emmett and Teller. Though based on a model which is admittedly over-simplified and open to criticism on a number of grounds, the theory leads to an expression—the BET equation —which, when applied with discrimination, has proved remarkably successful in evaluating the specific surface from a Type II isotherm. 

An alternative way of deriving the BET equation is to express the problem in statistical-mechanical rather than kinetic terms. Adsorption is explicitly assumed to be localized the surface is regarded as an array of identical adsorption sites, and each of these sites is assumed to form the base of a stack of sites extending out from the surface each stack is treated as a separate system, i.e. the occupancy of any site is independent of the occupancy of sites in neighbouring stacks—a condition which corresponds to the neglect of lateral interactions in the BET model. The further postulate that in any stack the site in the ith layer can be occupied only if all the underlying sites are already occupied, corresponds to the BET picture in which condensation of molecules to form the ith layer can only take place on to molecules which are present in the (i — l)th layer. 

By following the standard procedures of statistical mechanics, one arrives at an equation which can be converted into the BET equation (2.12) by the simple substitution 9i/9i , ki = c. Thus parameter c acquires a significance different from that in the BET theory in essence it now involves entropic terms as well as energetic terms. 

It is interesting to note that the BET equation is equivalent to the difference between the upper branches of two rectangular hyperbolae, as may be seen by breaking up the right-hand side of Equation (2.12) into partial fractions ... 

When c is less than 2 but still positive, the BET equation results in a curve having the general shape of a Type III isotherm (cf. Fig. 2.1, Curve A and Fig. 2.3). 

As is seen from Fig. 2.L, the BET equation yields an isotherm which (so long as c exceeds 2) has a point of inflection this point is close to, but not necessarily coincident with, the point where the amount adsorbed is equal to the BET monolayer capacity. 

Fig. 2.4 The BET equation. Plot ofX, calculated for different values of c, against Y,. X, is the value of n/ii at the point of inflection in the isotherm F, is the relative pressure at the point of inflection. Each point on the curve is marked with the corresponding value of c in brackets.

The most convenient form of the BET equation for application to experimental data is that already given in Equation (2.13), viz... 

A number of attempts have been made to modify the BET equation so as to obtain better agreement with the experimental isotherm data in the multilayer region. One of the most recent is that of Brunauer and his co-workers ... 

The Type II isotherms obtained experimentally often display a rather long straight portion (BC in Fig. 2.9), a feature not strictly compatible with the properties of the BET equation which, as we have seen, yields a point of... 

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