This book is designed for use in an introductory course in thermodynamics. It is aimed at students of Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science, and Engineering. As an undergraduate text, it gives a clear description of the theoretical framework of thermodynamics, while providing specific examples of its use in a wide variety of problems. These examples include topics that are atypical of undergraduate texts, such as biological systems, atmospheric phenomena, and polymers.

The narrative is infused with historical notes on the characters who make up the story of thermodynamics, enlivening the material while keeping the reader engaged.

This book contains the proceedings of the first Workshop on Interface Phenomena, organized jointly by the surface science groups at Dalhousie University and the University of Maine. It was our intention to concentrate on just three topics related to the kinetics of interface reactions which, in our opinion, were frequently obscured unnecessarily in the literature and whose fundamental nature warranted an extensive discussion to help clarify the issues, very much in the spirit of the Discussions of the Faraday Society. Each session (day) saw two principal speakers expounding the different views; the session chairmen were asked to summarize the ensuing discussions. To understand the complexity of interface reactions, paradigms must be formulated to provide a framework for the interpretation of experimen tal data and for the construction of theoretical models. Phenomenological approaches have been based on a small number of rate equations for the concentrations or mole numbers of the various species involved in a par ticular system with the relevant rate constants either fitted (in the form of the Arrheniusparametrization) to experimental data or calculated on the basis of microscopic models. The former procedure can at best serve as a guide to the latter, and is, in most cases, confined to ruling out certain reaction pathways rather than to ascertaining a unique answer."

This monograph deals with the kinetics of adsorption and desorption of molecules physisorbed on solid surfaces. Although frequent and detailed reference is made to experiment, it is mainly concerned with the theory of the subject. In this, we have attempted to present a unified picture based on the master equation approach. Physisorption kinetics is by no means a closed and mature subject; rather, in writing this monograph we intended to survey a field very much in flux, to assess its achievements so far, and to give a reasonable basis from which further developments can take off. For this reason we have included many papers in the bibliography that are not referred to in the text but are of relevance to physisorption. To keep this monograph to a reasonable size, and also to allow for some unity in the presentation of the material, we had to omit a number of topics related to physisorption kinetics. We have not covered to any extent the equilibrium properties of physisorbed layers such as structures, phase tr- sitions and thermodynamic properties in general. A number of excellent revIew articles, listed in the bibliography, cover this material. Likewise, little is said about scattering off solid surfaces; this subject is again covered in several books and many review articles. Lastly, little is said about chemisorption kinetics, for which microscopic thebries and models have not been fully developed but are still at a rather early exploratory stage.