Adsorption of Water on Well-Characterized Solid Surfaces

Abstract

There are two aspects to the state of water at solid surfaces. One has to do with the structure and thermodynamic properties of the water in the first layers formed as water is adsorbed from the vapor phase. The other is concerned with the water structure, and usual accompanying ionic arrangement (double layer), at solid/water interfaces. The first subject will be investigated in this summary, although some of the conclusions reached no doubt should spill over into the second field, and vice versa. The first layers of adsorbed water often do not contain ions from the solid (even alkali halides are essentially hydrophobic until ions leave the lattice structure), and this absence of any or many ions is a primary difference in character of the two situations.