Polanyis model of adsorption was met with much criticism for several decades after publication years. His simplistic model for determining adsorption was formed during the time of the discovery of Debyes fixed dipoles, Bohr's atomic model, and well as the developing theory of intermolecular forces and electrostatic forces by key figures in the chemistry world including W.H. Bragg, W.L. Bragg, and Willem Hendrik Keesom.
Opponents of his model claimed that Polanyis theory did not take into account these emerging theories. Criticism included that the model did not take into account the electrical interactions of the gas and the surface, and that the presence of other molecules would screen off the attraction of the gas to the surface. Polanyis model was furthermore put under scrutiny following the experimental claims of Irving Langmuir from 1916 to 1918 through whose research would eventually win the Nobel Prize in 1932.
However, Polanyi was not able to participate in many of these discussions because he served as a medical officer for the Austro-Hungarian army in the Serbian front during World War I. Polanyi wrote about this experience saying: