ABSTRACT
The very reason that foam fractionation is effective as a process is that certain molecular species want to adsorb to gas-liquid interfaces, just as hydrophobic particles attach to the surface of bubbles in flotation. Thus, the process of adsorption of molecular species onto gas-liquid interfaces is fundamental to foam fractionation, and this will be the exclusive topic of Chapter 2. Topics to be addressed will be the equilibrium and rate of surface adsorption for various species, as well as how these properties change when liquid advects past a bubble surface, as it does in foam fractionation. The difference between an equilibrium adsorption condition and a rate of adsorption is often conflated, and is the essential difference between the material that typically interests chemists versus that of interest to chemical engineers.
