Some developments in adsorption from the liquid phase

In a wide area of process technology, including environmental technology, adsorpti on from the liquid phase is a present or possible future separation method. Next to that adsorption phenomena occur in our environment, such as in soil contaminati on, which requires us to understand and handle them. There is an overwhelming amount of literature on various aspects of the subject, which makes it impossible to cover it in depth within the present scope. However recently a considerable amount of books, reviews and conference proceeedings have appeared which give an excellent overview [1-19], in many cases covering gas adsorption as well. In the present paper a compact view is given of practical and theoretical aspects, and of developments observed and desired. For the sake of brevity we will in the follo wing use the term "liquid phase adsorption", instead of the more precise term used in the title.