05-17U

A review of models for the description of the adsorption-desorption processes on a surface has been made. A simple model of the lattice gas allows to recover the mono- and multilayer adsorption isotherms of simple gases. A generalization of this theory to real materials is not trivial and includes a number of modified models which allow the theoretical description of some catalytic processes and adsorption in porous materials. Kinetics of adsorption-desorption and diffusion processes on a crystal surface can be considered as an effective quantum-mechanical problem. The correspondence between dynamics of surface processes and quantum spin models is analyzed as well.