Surface Area: Adsorption is a surface phenomenon and as such the
extent of adsorption is proportional to specific surface area. Specific surface
area can be defined as that portion of the total surface area that is available for
adsorption. Thus the amount of adsorption accomplished per unit weight of
solid adsorbent is greater, if the solid is more finely divided and more porous.
It was found that for porous materials like activated carbon, the breaking up
of large particulars to form smaller ones can in some instances serve to open
some tiny, sealed channels in the carbon with might then become available for
adsorption thus possibly yielding dependence of equilibrium capaci6y of
particular size. They also showed that both the rate and extent to adsorption
by particulars of a fixed carbon size should vary approximately linearly with
the dosage of adsorbent over a range of doses that do not result in great
differences in the concentrations of solute remaining in bulk solution phase.