1. The act of charging a liquid with a gas making it effervescent.
2. The process of exposing to air (so as to purify).
The process of bringing air into contact with a liquid (typically water), usually by bubbling air through the liquid, spraying the liquid into the air, allowing the liquid to cascade down a waterfall, or by mechanical agitation. Aeration serves to (1) strip dissolved gases from solution, and/or (2) oxygenate the liquid. The rate at which a gas transfers into solution can be described by Ficks First Law.