Surface Science - Surface Chemistry

Surface Chemistry

Surface chemistry can be roughly defined as the study of chemical reactions at interfaces. It is closely related to surface engineering, which aims at modifying the chemical composition of a surface by incorporation of selected elements or functional groups that produce various desired effects or improvements in the properties of the surface or interface. Surface chemistry also overlaps with electrochemistry. Surface science is of particular importance to the field of heterogeneous catalysis.

The adhesion of gas or liquid molecules to the surface is known as adsorption. This can be due to either chemisorption or by physisorption. These too are included in surface chemistry.

The behavior of a solution based interface is affected by the surface charge, dipoles, energies, and their distribution within the electrical double layer.

Read more about this topic:  Surface Science

Famous quotes containing the words surface and/or chemistry:

    All beauties contain, like all possible phenomena, something eternal and something transitory,—something absolute and something particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction skimmed from the common surface of different sorts of beauty. The particular element of each beauty comes from the emotions, and as we each have our own particular emotions, so we have our beauty.
    Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)

    If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)