Adsorption on heterogeneous regular surfaces

Quantifying the role of surface shape and physicochemical surface condition s on the interfacial reactivity of particles and substrates is fundamental to a multitude of natural and engineered surface adsorption phenomena. We c onsider continuum/jump regime adsorption at the gas or liquid interface of arbitrary regular solid surfaces with heterogeneous surface features. In pa rticular, the 3-D boundary value problem (based on Laplace's diffusion equa tion) is converted into a 2-D integral equation for the adsorbate concentra tion at the particle surface. This accommodates numerical descretization vi a the implementation of 2-D Gauss-Legendre quadratures on an arrangement of high- and low-adsorption patch trace sites constructed to completely cover the particle surface. A generalized computer program is developed to solve the resulting linear algebra problem for the unkown local adsorption curre nt densities. We investigate the role of various distributions of high- and low-adsorption sites for a generalized class of spheres which includes the DNA-like shaped twisted spheres. The biological implications of the role o f surface curvature on interfacial adsorption/reactivity at particle surfac es are also discussed. (C) 2001 Academic Press.