Pattern of adsorption isotherms in Ono-Kondo coordinates.

The Ono-Kondo lattice density functional theory is used to analyze adsorbate-adsorbate interactions for supercritical systems. In prior work, this approach has been used to study intermolecular interactions in subcritical adsorbed phases, and this has included the study of adsorbate-adsorbate repulsions in the regime of adsorption compression. In this paper, we present the general pattern of adsorption isotherms in Ono-Kondo coordinates; this has not been done in the past. For this purpose, experimental isotherms for adsorption of supercritical fluids (including nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide) are plotted in Ono-Kondo coordinates. In addition, we performed Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations of adsorption for Lennard-Jones molecules and plotted isotherms in Ono-Kondo coordinates. Our results indicate a pattern of isotherms with regimes of adsorbate-adsorbate attractions at low surface coverage and adsorbate-adsorbate repulsions at high surface coverage. When the generalized Ono-Kondo model is used over a wide range of pressures - from low pressures of the Henry's law regime to supercritical pressures - the slope of the isotherm varies from positive at low pressures to negative at high pressures. The linear sections of these graphs show when the adsorbate-adsorbate interaction energies are approximately constant. When these linear sections have negative slopes, it indicates that the system is in a state of adsorption compression.