The Kelvin Capillary Phenomena in Chromatography and its Influence upon the Determination of Adsorption Coefficients

Equations have been developed that show that the chromatographic retention volume is affected by capillary phenomena that occur in the pores of the support and which are related to the Kelvin effect. This “Kelvin retention” can be determined and turns out to be an important part of the overall surface retention, unless the solute under study is not soluble in the stationary phase. A correction should thus be applied to the chromatographic measurements of gas-liquid adsorption coefficients. The correction to the partition coefficient can be made negligible.