Heterogeneous Adhesion : an interesting little bit of materials science history

Not a term widely used nowadays is "Heterogeneous Adhesion" - we prefer the term adsorption.

"Some porous solids are capable of absorbing and retaining large quantities of gaseous matter". So wrote J.F. Daniell in 1839[1]. 

He goes on to write "Those gases which are the most readily condensible, by pressure, into liquids, yield most readily to the force of heterogeneous adhesion." "Though charcoal possesses this property in a very eminent degree, it is by no means the only substance whose pores exert the force of heterogeneous adhesion."

Imagine that, the notion of the enhancement of attractive forces within the confines of a pore! In 1839! Without it we wouldn't be measuring pore size distributions using modern gas adsorption equipment today.

He had earlier also hinted at the phenomenon of chemisorption when in 1836 he wrote

"... the cause of this great diffusion of the hydrogen in that force of heterogeneous adhesion to which I have already referred the power of nascent gases, reacting upon, or acting in conjunction with, its elastic or self-repulsive force. Under the influence of these two forces the gaseous matter seems to extend itself upon the metal, much in the same way that a drop of volatile oil spreads itself over a large surface of water..."

in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 126, pp. 107-124.

Daniell is most well known for the electric cell that bears his name.

John Frederic Daniell FRS (12 March 1790 – 13 March 1845) 

1. "An Introduction to the Study of Chemical Philiosphy being a preparatory view of the forces which concur to the production of chemical phenomena" by J Frederic Daniell, 1839, p57 (John W. Parker, London)