Although the swelling of a number of colloidal materials has been studied intensely, little attention has been given the thermodynamic aspects of swelling. This lack of attention is perhaps because the major part of sorption and swelling data are not subject to thermodynamic calculations. Katz (2) has pointed out that thermodynamics deals only with true equilibrium conditions and hence such effects as those of sorption and swelling hysteresis and changing surface of sorption during a single cycle must be eliminated in order that the results have theoretical significance.Katz (2) has compared the differential heats of swelling in water obtained from thermal data with the changes in free energy of swelling calculated from moisture content-vapor pressure data for cotton, wood, and casein, using the equation
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