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
Surface-area-to-volume ratio very large surface area for a given volume. The surface-area-to-volume ratio has physical dimension L (inverse length) and is therefore expressed in units of inverse distance. As an example, a cube with sides of length 1 cm will have a surface area of 6 cm and a volume of 1 cm. The surface to volume ratio for this cube is thus For a given shape, SA:V is inversely proportional to size. A cube 2 cm on a side has a ratio of 3 cm, half that of a cube 1 cm on a side. Conversely, preserving SA:V as size increases