Adsorption in Environmental Studies

Adsorption is the tendency for accumulation of a substance to take place at a surface or at an interface. The accummenence of adsorption is due to the atoms in any surface being subject to unbalanced forces of attraction perpendicular to the surface plane and these forces possess a certain unsaturation. The contact of immiscible phases result in penetration of bulk of one phase by the other, this is called "absorption".