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Adsorption of Phosphate on Goethite. An Undergraduate Research Laboratory Project

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Lorena Tribe

Pennsylvania State University Berks–Lehigh Valley, Reading, PA 19610-6009

Beatriz C. Barja

INQUIMAE, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Buenos Aires Ciudad Universitaria–Pab. II, 1428 Capital Federal, Argentina

J. Chem. Educ., 2004, 81 (11), p 1624

DOI: 10.1021/ed081p1624

Publication Date (Web): November 1, 2004

Abstract

We present a freshman laboratory experiment on the adsorption of phosphate on goethite as a case study that opens the doors to the discussion of surface properties, interphases, acid–base equilibrium, molecular structure, and solid state chemistry, among other topics. We also describe a pedagogical implementation of this experiment that allows the students to work cooperatively, enhancing the feeling of community of the course. In this work students approach the study of adsorption of phosphate on an iron oxide as a function of pH, total ligand concentration, and ionic strength of the solution. This is achieved by adding an aqueous solution of sodium phosphate of known concentration to a suspension of goethite, allowing the system to equilibrate and then determining the concentration of phosphate not adsorbed on the surface of the oxide in the supernatant solution. These experiments are performed in different pH and ionic strength conditions to evaluate the role of these variables on the adsorption processes. Students were able to observe that the adsorption of phosphate increased with decreasing pH while it was not appreciably affected by the ionic strength of the solution.

Keywords (Audience):

Upper-Division Undergraduate

Keywords (Domain):

Analytical Chemistry

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Inquiry-Based / Discovery Learning

Keywords (Subject):

Agricultural Chemistry

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This article has been cited by 1 ACS Journal articles (1 most recent appear below).

A Simple Adsorption Experiment
Gonzalo Guirado and José A. Ayllón
Journal of Chemical Education2011 88 (5), 624-628
- A Simple Adsorption Experiment
  Gonzalo Guirado and José A. Ayllón
  Journal of Chemical Education2011 88 (5), 624-628
  The study of adsorption phenomenon is one of the most relevant and traditional physical chemistry experiments performed by chemistry undergraduate students in laboratory courses. In this article, we describe an easy, inexpensive, and straightforward way ...
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