Prediction of adsorption equilibria for ternary liquid mixtures on solid surfaces by means of adsorption data for the corresponding three binary liquid mixtures can be improved by combining the thermodynamic excess formalism with geometrical models This new strategy for the prediction of excess adsorption isotherms is examined for four ternary adsorption systems ranging from ideal to highly non-ideal ternary mixtures The predicted isotherms are discussed and compared with experimental ones as well as with those obtained for a model based on the absolute quantities The results confirm (i) superiority of predicting adsorption in terms of excess quantities and (ii) utility of geometrical models for constructing ternary molar compositions on the basis of binary ones to predict equilibria not only for liquid mixtures alone but also for adsorption of liquid mixtures on solid surfaces (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved