Adsorption of strontium onto synthetic iron(III) oxide up to high ionic strength systems

In this work, the adsorption behavior of Sr onto a synthetic iron(III) oxide (hematite with traces of goethite) has been studied. This solid, which might be considered a representative of Fe3+ solid phases (iron corrosion products), was characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), and its specific surface area was determined. Both XRD and XPS data are consistent with a mixed solid containing more than 90% hematite and 10% goethite. The solid was further characterized by fast acid-base titrations at different NaCl concentrations (from 0.1 to 5 M). Subsequently, for each background NaCl concentration used for the acid-base titrations, Sr-uptake experiments were carried out involving two different levels of Sr concentration (1 × 10−5 and 5 × 10−5 M, respectively) at constant solid concentration (7.3 g/L) as a function of −log([H+]/M). A Surface Complexation Model (SCM) was fitted to the experimental data, following a coupled Pitzer/surface complexation approach. The Pitzer model was applied to aqueous species. A Basic Stern Model was used for interfacial electrostatics of the system, which includes ion-specific effects via ion-specific pair-formation constants, whereas the Pitzer-approach involves ion-interaction parameters that enter the model through activity coefficients for aqueous species. A simple 1-pK model was applied (generic surface species, denoted as >XOH−1/2). Parameter fitting was carried out using the general parameter estimation software UCODE, coupled to a modified version of FITEQL2. The combined approach describes the full set of data reasonably well and involves two Sr-surface complexes, one of them including chloride. Monodentate and bidentate models were tested and were found to perform equally well. The SCM is particularly able to account for the incomplete uptake of Sr at higher salt levels, supporting the idea that adsorption models conventionally used in salt concentrations below 1 M are applicable to high salt concentrations if the correct activity corrections for the aqueous species are applied. This generates a self-consistent model framework involving a practical approach for semi-mechanistic SCMs. The model framework of coupling conventional electrostatic double layer models for the surface with a Pitzer approach for the bulk solution earlier tested with strongly adsorbing solutes is here shown to be successful for more weakly adsorbing solutes.