Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the work done with soils and with hydrous oxides of iron and aluminum, with particular reference to mechanisms and structural aspects of anion adsorption. Anion adsorption on clay minerals and calcium carbonate is also discussed. The determination of adsorption isotherms is one of the most useful experimental procedures in the study of the interaction of anions with hydrous oxides or soils. Anion adsorption involves an electrostatic interaction and some chemical interaction between the surface and the ion. The Langmuir model is incomplete in describing this adsorption because it takes no account of charge. The adsorption of anions is dependent on pH, with maximum adsorption usually occurring for fully dissociated ions at low pH where the surface becomes positively charged, owing to protonation of surface M·OH groups. Maximum adsorption of anions of incompletely dissociated acids occurs at a pH value close to the pK of the acid. Anion adsorption reactions in soil are complicated by competition for adsorption sites from anions, including carboxylates, and also by the presence of cations, such as calcium and aluminum.

Anion Adsorption by Soils and Soil Materials

The Quantitation of Aqueous Aluminum, P.R. Bloom and M.S. Erich Aqueous Equilibrium Data for Mononuclear Aluminum Species, D.K. Nordstrom and H.M. May Inorganic Aluminum Bearing Solid Phases, B.S. Hemingway and G. Sposito Aqueous Polynuclear Aluminum Species, P.M. Bertsch and D.R. Parker Environmental Chemistry of Aluminum-Organic Complexes, G.F. Vance, F.J. Stevenson, and F.J. Sikora Surface Reactions of Aqueous Aluminum Species, P.M. Jardine and L.W. Zelazny The Surface Chemistry of Aluminum Oxides and Hydroxides, S.R. Goldberg, J.A. Davis, and J.D. Hem The Solubility of Aluminum in Soils, W.L. Lindsay and P.M. Walthall The Chemistry of Aluminum in Surface Waters, C.T. Driscoll and K.M. Postek Aluminum Geochemistry at the Catchment Scale in Watersheds Influenced by Acidic Precipitation, W.H. Hendershot, F. Courchesne, and D.S. Jeffries Index

The Environmental Chemistry of Aluminum

Theoretical models of sorption kinetics including a surface reaction mechanism: A review

Phosphorus (P) is essential for plants and animals because of its role in vital life processes, such as in photosynthesis in plants and energy transformations in all forms of life. It also has a significant role in sustaining and building up soil fertility, particularly under intensive systems of agriculture.

Chemistry of Phosphorus Transformations in Soil

Summary

The two main motivations for studying equations which describe adsorption of phosphate are to understand the processes involved, and to summarize many results by a few numbers. If more than one hypothesis about the process is tenable, appropriate statistical procedures should be used both to choose between them and to obtain the best summary of the results with a given equation. Equations most likely to be successful in describing adsorption are those in which the affinity for adsorption decreases as the amount of adsorption increases. This effect is inherent in the process of phosphate adsorption and occurs because specific adsorption of anions increases the negative charge on the adsorbing surface. It is included in the complex equations of Bowden, and in simpler fashion in the Freundlich equation. Because the simpler equation can only approximately describe the true situation, a perfect fit over a wide range of concentrations should not be expected. Equations for which the affinity for adsorption is constant — such as the Langmuir equation — are not consistent with our knowledge of the adsorption process. This difficulty is not avoided by the multi-surface Langmuir equations: such equations may also be difficult to justify on statistical grounds.

The description of phosphate adsorption curves

The phosphate adsorption by hematite and gibbsite conformed to the Freundlich equation. The rate of phosphate adsorption was rapid initially and decreased with prolonged reaction time. A two-constant rate equation was developed which successfully described the rate of phosphate adsorption. T

S. Kuo

Papers

Kinetics of Phosphate Adsorption and Desorption by Hematite and GIBBSITE1