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Ion Products and Solid‐Phase Activity to Describe Phosphate Sorption by Soils
Author(s) -
Blanchar R. W.,
Stearman G. K.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
soil science society of america journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1435-0661
pISSN - 0361-5995
DOI - 10.2136/sssaj1984.03615995004800060010x
Subject(s) - phosphate , sorption , chemistry , solubility , soil water , solid solution , phase (matter) , ion , analytical chemistry (journal) , inorganic chemistry , mineralogy , nuclear chemistry , adsorption , chromatography , geology , soil science , organic chemistry
Solution equilibria and regular solid‐solution concepts were combined to relate phosphate solubility to amounts of added phosphate in eight acidic Missouri soils. Phosphate sorption studies were done by shaking KH 2 PO 4 solutions with soil for 16 d and measuring pH, Eh, electrical conductivity, Ca, Mn, Al, Fe, and P contents of the solution. These data were used to compute ion products and to estimate the activities of solid‐phase phosphate minerals. It was shown that solubility relationships for the reaction of H 2 PO 4 with Al(OH) 3 could be interfaced with estimates of solid‐phase activities and used to predict phosphate in solution as a function of a soil constant ( C ), soil pH, and the amount of phosphate added. Activities for the equilibrium equation, p(H 2 PO 4 ) = 10.50 − pH − p[Al(OH) 3 ] + p(AlPO 4 ), were estimated. The value of p[Al(OH) 3 ] was determined from the data to be a linear function of pH, 2.41 − 0.42 pH, for soils used in this study. The value of p(AlPO 4 ) was determined by statistically fitting observed p(AlPO 4 ) and P added to a polynomial equation similar in form to the one for a regular solid solution: p(AlPO 4 ) = C − 9.4 × 10 −3 (P added ) + 6.9 × 10 −6 (P added ) 2 , with r 2 = 0.96. Values of p(H 2 PO 4 ) were calculated from pH and P added by these combined equations, and compared with measured p(H 2 PO 4 ) with an r 2 of 0.96. The system was shown to have solubility features similar to those described for a regular solid solution. Combining solution equilibria and regular solid‐solution concepts was useful in providing a chemical basis for interpreting phosphate sorption by soils.