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 energy number of atoms at the surface and in the bulk of the solid. Calculating the surface formation energy of a crystalline solid In density functional theory, surface energy can be calculated from the following expression where formula_17 is the total energy of surface slab obtained using density functional theory. formula_18 is the number of atoms in the surface slab. formula_19 is the bulk energy per atom. formula_6 is the surface area. For a slab, we have two surfaces and they are of the same type, which is reflected by the number 2 in the denominator. To guarantee this, we need