A NETWORK OF CHARACTERISTIC FUNCTIONS DESCRIBING THE DYNAMICS OF ADSORBATE-ADSORBENT SYSTEMS

Adsorbate-adsorbent systems characterized by a stationary particle exc hange with their surrounding an considered. Defending on the considere d processes, like, e.g., tracer exchange or particle conversion, the b ehaviour of such a system may be described by a number of characterist ic functions (tracer exchange curves, effectiveness factor, residence time distribution, transit time distribution, and others) whose partic ular shape is determined by the properties of the underlying transport mechanisms. It is shown that, under very general assumptions (mainly stationarity), there are one-to-one relations between these characteri stic functions. Owing to these relations, the behaviour in a given pro cess may be determined from that in a completely different one, withou t the need of any explicit information about the underlying transport mechanisms. The paper derives a great variety of relations (including equations for the analysis of a number of frequently used experimental setups) and discusses the information content as well as general prop erties of the characteristic functions.