Effects of Organic Anions on Phosphate Adsorption and Desorption from Variable—Charge Clay Minerals and Soil

Effects of citrate and tartrate on phosphate adsorption and desorption from kaolinite,goethite,amorphous Al-oxide and Ultisol were studied.P adsorption was significantly decreased as the concentration of the organic anions increased from 10^-5 to 10^-1 M.At 0.1 M and pH 7.0,tartrate decreased P adsorption by 27.6%-50.6% and citrate by 37.9-80.4%,depending on the kinds of adsorbent.Little Al and/or Fe were detected in the equilibrium solutions,even at the highest concentration of the organic anions.Effects of the organic anions on phosphate adsorption follow essentially the competitive adsorption mechanism.The selectivity coefficients for competitive adsorption can be used to compare the effectiveness of different organic anions in reducing P adsorption under given gonditions. Phosphate desorption was increased by 3 to 100 times in the presence of 0.001 M citrate or tartrate compared to that in 0.02 M KCl solution alone.However,for all the soil and clay minerals studied the amount of P desorbed by citrate or tartrate was generally lower than or close to that of isotopically exchangeable P.The effect of organic anions on phosphate desorption arises primarily from ligand exchange.