The Dubinin-Radushkevich equation and the underlying microscopic adsorption description

The Dubinin-Radushkevich (DR) equation is widely used for description of ad sorption in microporous materials, especially those of a carbonaceous origi n. The equation has a semi-empirical origin and is based on the assumptions of a change in the potential energy between the gas and adsorbed phases an d a characteristic energy of a given solid. This equation yields a macrosco pic behaviour of adsorption loading for a given pressure. In this paper, we apply a theory developed in our group to investigate the underlying mechan ism of adsorption as an alternative to the macroscopic description using th e DR equation. Using this approach, we are able to establish a detailed pic ture of the adsorption in the whole range of the micropore system. This is different from the DR equation, which provides an overall description of th e process. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.