Surface area, important paramete

In normal-phase or adsorption chromatography, the chromatographic properties are functions of the specific area. Retention factors increase with the specific surface area. The parameter of the specific surface area of the packing could be of great importance when selectivity and efficiency have to be improved. One very short column packed with a silica of high specific surface area will yield the same results as a long column packed with a silica of low specific surface area (18). 

Because it is related to the specific surface area, this parameter will be important if the surface area of the powder is concerned. 

The surface area, pore structure and chemical composition of the surface are important parameters of any support material or solid catalyst. Even when mechanistic interpretation is not a primary aim, many techniques are now applied in industrial laboratories to establish correlations between these parameters and the performance of specific catalysts. Such techniques may also be used on a routine basis to monitor the reproducibility of purchased materials and catalyst preparation methods. 

Semi empirical equations and numerical approaches are developed to describe the drop size of an atomization at different spraying parameters and material properties. Most of the empirical equations calculate the Sauter mean diameter (SMD) xi 2 representing the mean diameter of an area-based DSD Q2. Compared to a distribution of a certain number n of drops it is the one drop, of which diameter is Xi-2 and having the same surface area multiplied with n like the whole DSD. For most processes like spray drying, where the drying rate is directly proportional to the surface area, a parameter like the SMD is of great importance. 

The second step is to disperse the core material being encapsulated in the solution of shell material. The core material usually is a hydrophobic or water-knmiscible oil, although soHd powders have been encapsulated. A suitable emulsifier is used to aid formation of the dispersion or emulsion. In the case of oil core materials, the oil phase is typically reduced to a drop size of 1—3 p.m. Once a suitable dispersion or emulsion has been prepared, it is sprayed into a heated chamber. The small droplets produced have a high surface area and are rapidly converted by desolvation in the chamber to a fine powder. Residence time in the spray-drying chamber is 30 s or less. Inlet and outlet air temperatures are important process parameters as is relative humidity of the inlet air stream. 

The quantity of undrainable residual moisture caimot be predicted without the benefit of experimental data. Equation 17 (6) indicates the important parameters where the exponents were determined using limited experimentation. Introducing the approximation that is proportional to 1/d, where s is the specific surface area per weight of solid, the modified equation for undrainable liquid becomes... 

Several properties of the filler are important to the compounder (279). Properties that are frequentiy reported by fumed sihca manufacturers include the acidity of the filler, nitrogen adsorption, oil absorption, and particle size distribution (280,281). The adsorption techniques provide a measure of the surface area of the filler, whereas oil absorption is an indication of the stmcture of the filler (282). Measurement of the sdanol concentration is critical, and some techniques that are commonly used in the industry to estimate this parameter are the methyl red absorption and methanol wettabihty (273,274,277) tests. Other techniques include various spectroscopies, such as diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (drift), inverse gas chromatography (igc), photoacoustic ir, nmr, Raman, and surface forces apparatus (277,283—290). 

Air Permeability. Air permeabiUty is an important parameter for certain fabric end uses, eg, parachute fabrics, boat sails, warm clothing, rainwear, and industrial air filters. Air permeabiUty of a fabric is related to its cover, or opacity. Both of these properties are related to the amount of space between yams (or fibers in the case of nonwovens). The most common method for specifying air permeabiUty of a fabric involves measuring the air flow per unit area at a constant pressure differential between the two surfaces of the fabric. This method, suitable for measuring permeabiUty of woven, knitted, and nonwoven fabrics, is described in ASTM D737. Units for air permeabiUty measured by this method are generally abbreviated as CFM, or cubic feet per square foot per minute. 

K. K , = geometrical factors, depending upon the more important parameters such as area of the grounding grid, its depth and conductor spacing and less important factors, such as diameter of the conductors and the thickness of the finishing surface by concrete or gravel. 

Another important parameter is the temperature difference between the evaporator outlet temperature on the steam side and on the exhaust gas side. This difference is known as the pinch point. Ideally, the lower the pinch point, the more heat recovered, but this calls for more surface area and, consequently, increases the back pressure and cost. Also, excessively low... 

The relationship between adsorption capacity and surface area under conditions of optimum pore sizes is concentration dependent. It is very important that any evaluation of adsorption capacity be performed under actual concentration conditions. The dimensions and shape of particles affect both the pressure drop through the adsorbent bed and the rate of diffusion into the particles. Pressure drop is lowest when the adsorbent particles are spherical and uniform in size. External mass transfer increases inversely with d (where, d is particle diameter), and the internal adsorption rate varies inversely with d Pressure drop varies with the Reynolds number, and is roughly proportional to the gas velocity through the bed, and inversely proportional to the particle diameter. Assuming all other parameters being constant, adsorbent beds comprised of small particles tend to provide higher adsorption efficiencies, but at the sacrifice of higher pressure drop. This means that sharper and smaller mass-transfer zones will be achieved. 

Adsorption is influenced by the surface area of the adsorbent, the nature of the solvent being adsorbed, the pH of the operating system, and the temperature of operation. These are important parameters to be aware of when designing or evaluating an adsorption process. 

In Section 1.1 corrosion was defined simply as the reaction of a metal with its environment, and it was emphasised that this term embraces a number of concepts of which the rate of attack per unit area of the metal surface, the extent of attack in relation to the thickness of the metal and its form (uniform, localised, intergranular, cracking, etc.) are the most significant. The rate of corrosion is obviously the most important parameter, and will determine the life of a given metal structure. Whether or not a given rate of corrosion can be tolerated will, of course, depend upon a variety of factors such as the thickness of the metal, the function and anticipated life of the metal structure and the effect of the corrosion products on the environment, etc. 

It was found that the dissolution rate of the material depends both on its surface area and on its crystalline size, but the importance of the crystalline size seems to be greater. The empiric equation describing the above dependence of the leaching rate on these two parameters is as follows (130) ... 

It is important to distinguish clearly between the surface area of a decomposing solid [i.e. aggregate external boundaries of both reactant and product(s)] measured by adsorption methods and the effective area of the active reaction interface which, in most systems, is an internal structure. The area of the contact zone is of fundamental significance in kinetic studies since its determination would allow the Arrhenius pre-exponential term to be expressed in dimensions of area"1 (as in catalysis). This parameter is, however, inaccessible to direct measurement. Estimates from microscopy cannot identify all those regions which participate in reaction or ascertain the effective roughness factor of observed interfaces. Preferential dissolution of either reactant or product in a suitable solvent prior to area measurement may result in sintering [286]. The problems of identify-... 

Surface energy or surface tension, y, has been an important parameter widely used for characterizing adhesion. It is dehned as half of the work needed to separate two bodies of unit area from contact with each other to an infinite distance, as schematically shown in Fig. 2. If the contact pairs are of the same material, the surface energy is identical to the cohesive energy. 

Selecting a rigorous and convenient quantitahve parameter characterizing the catalyhc achvity, A, is of prime importance when studying electrocatalytic phenomena and processes. The parameter usually selected is the current density, i (in AJan ), at a specified value of electrode poteuhal, E. The current density is referred to the electrode s true working surface area [which can be measured by the Brunauer-Emmett-TeUer (BET) or other methods]. Closely related to this true current density is another parameter, known as the turnover number y (in s ), and indicating the number of elementary reachon acts performed or number of electrons transferred in unit time per surface atom (or catalytic surface site) of the catalyst. 

In some specific cases one would like to convert the chemisorption data into an averaged particle size. In that case, the number of surface atoms per unit surface area (density of surface atoms) is an essential parameter. Since this number depends on the type of the crystallographic plane, (see Table 3.7), one also needs information on the types of crystallographic planes exposed to the gas phase. This is also important for another reason the adsorption stoichiometry may depend on the crystallographic plane. 

Polar surface area (PSA) - defined simply as the part of a molecular surface that is polar - is probably, together with the octanol-water partition coefficient, one of the most important parameters used to characterize the transport properties of drugs. PSA has been shown to provide very good correlations with intestinal... 

It may be mentioned here that the mode which represents the most commonly occurring size in a given distribution is not of much use in mineral processing since it does not describe fully the characteristics of a group of particles. The arithmetic mean diameter suffers from the same limitation except when the distribution is a normal one. The harmonic mean diameter is related to the specific surface area. It is, therefore, useful in such mineral processing operations where surface area is an important parameter. 

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