Absorption: Either the taking up of matter in bulk by other matter, as in the dissolving of a gas by a liquid; or the taking up of energy from radiation by the medium through which the radiation is passing. In the first case, an absorption coefficient is defined as the amount of gas dissolved at standard conditions by a unit volume of the solvent. Absorption in this sense is a volume effect: The absorbed substance permeates the whole of the absorber. In absorption of the second type, attenuation is produced which in many cases follows Lambert's law and adds to the effects of scattering if the latter is present.
Absorption of electromagnetic radiation can occur in several ways. For example, microwaves in a waveguide lose energy to the walls of the guide. For nonperfect conductors, the wave penetrates the guide surface and energy in the wave is transferred to the atoms of the guide. Light is absorbed by atoms of the medium through which it passes, and in some cases this absorption is quite distinctive. Selected frequencies from a heterochromatic source are strongly absorbed, as in the absorption spectrum of the Sun. Electromagnetic radiation can be absorbed by the photoelectric effect, where the light quantum is absorbed and an electron of the absorbing atom is ejected, and also by Compton scattering. Electron-positron pairs may be created by the absorption of a photon of sufficiently high energy. Photons can be absorbed by photoproduction of nuclear and subnuclear particles, analogous to the photoelectric effect.
Sound waves are absorbed at suitable frequencies by particles suspended in the air (wavelength of the order of the particle size), where the sound energy is transformed into vibrational energy of the absorbing particles.
Absorption of energy from a beam of particles can occur by the ionization process, where an electron in the medium through which the beam passes is removed by the beam particles. The finite range of protons and alpha particles in matter is a result of this process. In the case of low-energy electrons, scattering is as important as ionization, so that range is a less well-defined concept. Particles themselves may be absorbed from a beam. For example, in a nuclear reaction an incident particle X is absorbed into nucleus Y, and the result may be that another particle Z, or a photon, or particle X with changed energy comes out. Low-energy positrons are quickly absorbed by annihilating with electrons in matter to yield two gamma rays.
In the chemical process industries and in related areas such as petroleum refining and fuels purification, absorption usually means gas absorption. This is a unit operation in which a gas (or vapor) mixture is contacted with a liquid solvent selected to preferentially absorb one, or in some cases more than one, component from the mixture. The purpose is either to recover a desired component from a gas mixture or to rid the mixture of an impurity. In the latter case, the operation is often referred to as scrubbing.
When the operation is employed in reverse, that is, when a gas is utilized to extract a component from a liquid mixture, it is referred to as gas desorption, stripping, or sparging.
In gas absorption, either no further changes occur to the gaseous component once it is absorbed in the liquid solvent, or the absorbed component (solute) will become involved in a chemical reaction with the solvent in the liquid phase. In the former case, the operation is referred to as physical gas absorption, and in the latter case as gas absorption with chemical reaction.