IGC has been shown to be a powerful technique for
studying physicochemical interactions between solutes
and solid-state materials, especially those at the
surface. Indeed, the more extensive use of the
technique has clearly been hampered by the lack of
commercially available IGC equipment during the past50 years. The realization that thermodynamic
information about solid-state-solute interactions is
important and the very recent advent of commercial
IGC instrumentation is likely to result in a significant
increase in research using IGC nowadays.