Arsenate and phosphate adsorption in relation to oxides composition in soils: LCD modelling

The pH dependent solid-solution distribution of arsenate and phosphate in five Dutch agricultural soil samples was measured in the pH range 4–8, and the results were interpreted using the LCD (ligand and charge distribution) adsorption modeling. The pH dependency is similar for both oxyanions, with a minimum soluble concentration observed around pH 6–8. This pH dependency can be successfully described with the LCD model and it is attributed mainly to the synergistic effects from Ca adsorption. The solubility of phosphate is much lower than that of arsenate. This big difference cannot be sufficiently explained by the reduction of small amount of As(V) into As(III), neither by slow desorption/adsorption. The difference between phosphate and arsenate in their solid-solution distribution becomes larger with the increase of aluminum (hydr)oxides (Al-oxides) contribution to the total amount of metal (Al and Fe) (hydr)oxides. The influence of Al-oxides is much larger than its relative amount extracted from the soils. When Al-oxides account for >40% of the soil oxides, the whole adsorbents behave apparently similarly to that of pure Al-oxides. These results indicated that surface coating and substitution may have modified significantly oxyanion adsorption to Fe-oxides in soils, and how to account for this complexity is a challenge for geochemical modeling