Dispersion (materials science)

In materials science, dispersion is the fraction of atoms of a material exposed to the surface. In general, D = N_S/N, where D is the dispersion, N_S is the number of surface atoms and N_T is the total number of atoms of the material.^[1] It is an important concept in heterogeneous catalysis, since only atoms exposed to the surface can affect catalytic surface reactions. Dispersion increases with decreasing crystallite size and approaches unity at a crystallite diameter of about 0.1 nm.

See also

• Emulsion dispersion