Absorbent vs Adsorbent - What's the difference?
absorbent | adsorbent |
Having the ability or tendency to absorb; able to soak up liquid easily; absorptive.
Anything which absorbs.
* 1839 , , 1972, Forgotten Books,
(physiology, pluralized, now, rare) The vessels by which the processes of absorption are carried on, as the lymphatics in animals, the extremities of the roots in plants.
(medicine) Any substance which absorbs and neutralizes acid fluid in the stomach and bowels, as magnesia, chalk, etc.; also a substance, e.g., iodine, which acts on the absorbent vessels so as to reduce enlarged and indurated parts.
(chemistry) A liquid used in the process of separating gases or volatile liquids, in oil refining.
The solid or liquid in the process of adsorption on which the adsorbate accumulates.
As adjectives the difference between absorbent and adsorbent
is that absorbent is having the ability or tendency to absorb; able to soak up liquid easily; absorptive while adsorbent is tending to adsorb.As nouns the difference between absorbent and adsorbent
is that absorbent is anything which absorbs while adsorbent is the solid or liquid in the process of adsorption on which the adsorbate accumulates.absorbent
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Those paper towels were amazingly absorbent . That was quite a spill.
Derived terms
* absorbent ground * nonabsorbentNoun
(en noun)page 225,
- In the Southern Ocean the winter is not so excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot, for the clouded sky seldom allows the sun to warm the ocean, itself a bad absorbent of heat: and hence the mean temperature of the year is low.