The Langmuirian Adsorption Kinetics Revised: A Farewell to the XXth Century Theories?

A brief historical review of the development of the theoretical approaches to the kinetics of gas adsorption/desorption on/from the solid surfaces is presented. The attention is focused on new approaches, challenging the classical theories based on the ideas of Absolute Rate Theory (ART). These new approaches relate the adsorption/desorption kinetics to the chemical potentials of the molecules in the gas and adsorbed states. Among them the so-called Statistical Rate Theory (SRT) has the most rigorous theoretical foundations. That new approach predicts that depending on experimental conditions one can have a variety of kinetic equations corresponding to the Langmuir equilibrium adsorption isotherm.