English

Adsorption-desorption phenomena and diffusion of neutral particles in the hyperbolic regime

Mathematical Physics 2014-02-13 v1 Statistical Mechanics math.MP

Abstract

The adsorption phenomenon of neutral particles from the limiting surfaces of the sample in the Langmuir approximation is investigated. The diffusion equation regulating the redistribution of particles in the bulk is assumed to be of hyperbolic type, in order to take into account the finite velocity of propagation of the density variations. We show that in this framework the condition on the conservation of the number of particles gives rise to a nonlocal boundary condition. We solve the partial differential equation relevant to the diffusion of particles by means of the separation of variables, and present how it is possible to obtain approximated eigenvalues contributing to the solution. The same problem is faced numerically by a finite difference algorithm. The time dependence of the surface density of adsorbed particles is deduced by means of the kinetic equation at the interface. The predicted non-monotonic behavior of the surface density versus the time is in agreement with experimental observations reported in the literature, and is related to the finite velocity of propagation of the density variations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.2853,
  title  = {Adsorption-desorption phenomena and diffusion of neutral particles in the hyperbolic regime},
  author = {A Sapora and M Codegone and G Barbero and LR Evangelista},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.2853},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

22 pages, 8 figures, pre-print of the article published in J. Phys. A: Math. Theor