Kinetic modeling of liquid-phase adsorption of phosphate on dolomite

The adsorption of phosphate from aqueous solution on dolomite was investigated at 20 and 40 degrees C in terms of pseudo-second-order mechanism for chemical adsorption as well as an intraparticle diffusion mechanism process. Adsorption was changed with increased contact time, initial phosphate concentration, temperature, solution pH. A pseudo-second-order model and intraparticle diffusion model have been developed to predict the rate constants of adsorption and equilibrium capacities.The activation energy of adsorption can be evaluated using the pseudo-second-order rate constants. The adsorption of phosphate onto dolomite are an exothermically activated process. A relatively low activation energy and a model highly fitting to intraparticle diffusion suggest that the adsorption of phosphate by dolomite may involve not only physical but also chemisorption. This was likely due to its combined control of chemisorption and intraparticle diffusion. However, for phosphate/dolomite system chemical reaction is important and significant in the rate-controlling step, and for the adsorption of phosphate onto dolomite the pseudo-second-order chemical reaction kinetics provides the best correlation of the experimental data.