Surface-area-to-volume ratio Surface-area-to-volume ratio The surface-area-to-volume ratio, also called the surface-to-volume ratio and variously denoted sa/vol or SA:V, is the amount of surface area per unit volume of an object or collection of objects. In chemical reactions involving a solid material, the surface area to volume ratio is an important factor for the reactivity, that is, the rate at which the chemical reaction will proceed. For a given volume, the object with the smallest surface area (and therefore with the smallest SA:V) is the sphere, a consequence of the isoperimetric inequality in 3 dimensions. By contrast, objects with tiny spikes will have
BET theory physical adsorption of gas molecules. The total surface area formula_19 and the specific surface area formula_20 are given by where formula_5 is in units of volume which are also the units of the monolayer volume of the adsorbate gas, formula_24 is Avogadro's number, formula_25 the adsorption cross section of the adsorbing species, formula_26 the molar volume of the adsorbate gas, and formula_27 the mass of the solid sample or adsorbent. The BET theory can be derived similarly to the Langmuir theory, but by considering multilayered gas molecule adsorption, where it is not required for a layer to be completed before