In many modern studies, the Polanyi theory is widely used in the study of activated carbons, or carbon black. The theory has been successfully used to model a variety of scenarios such as the gas adsorption on activated carbon and the adsorption process of nonionic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Later on, experiments also showed that it can model ionic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as phenols and anilines. More recently, the Polyani adsorption isotherm has been used to model to adsorption of carbon nanoparticles.