This paper investigates multicomponent gas adsorption at the active surface of plasmonic chemical sensors and shows that there are situations where transients in a single sensor element can be used for simultaneous detection of different gases in multicomponent mixtures. A general master equation set is provided, describing multicomponent adsorption. Analytical expressions for sorption rates are derived and high-accuracy simplified models are proposed. Expressions for adsorption rate constants and rates and for number of binding sites are proposed. The derived analytical model takes into account the adsorbate molecule size, distribution of binding sites as determined by the crystallographic structure of the sensor surface and multi-site adsorption. The model allows for the calculation and optimization of deterministic behavior of the system. It is shown that trace amounts of target gas species can be made detectable by adding controlled amounts of known carrier gas. Besides being applicable in plasmonic sensor design and optimization, the obtained results may be of importance in situations where fast and low-cost detection of trace amounts of gases is needed, including natural gas leakage in residential heating, radon outgassing in dwellings, environmental protection, homeland defense and hazardous materials management, greenhouse footprint investigations, etc. (C) 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.