To study phosphate adsorption on kaolinite, 31 P MAS NMR(magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy)has been used for kaolinite reacted in 0.1 M phosphate solutions at pH’s from 3 to 11. There are at least 3 different forms of phosphate on kaolinite. One is the phosphate physically adsorbed on kaolinite surface (outer-sphere complexes) or species left after vacuum-filtering. The second is the phosphate adsorbed by ligand exchange (inner-sphere complexes), and the third is Al-phosphate precipitates which are pH dependent. Most of the inner-spherer complexes and surface precipitates are mainly on hydroxided Al(aluminol) rather than hydroxided Si(silanol). These are pertinent with the results obtained from the phosphate adsorption experiments on silica gel and γ-Al2O3 as model compounds, respectively. The two peaks with more negative chemical shifts(more shielded) than the ortho-phosphate peak (positive chemical shift) are assigned to be the inner-sphere complexes and surface precipitates. The 31 P chemical shifts of the Al-phosphate precipitates are more negative than those of inner-sphere complexes at a given pH due to the larger number of P-O-Al linkages per tetrahedron. The chemical shifts of both the inner-sphere complexes and surface precipitates are more negative than those of inner-sphere complexes at a given pH due to the larger number of P-O-Al linkages per tetrahedron. The chemical shifts of both the inner-sphere complexes and surface precipitates become progressively less shielded with increasing pH. For the inner-sphere complexes, decreasing phosphate protonation combined with peak averaging by rapid proton exchange among phosphate tetrahedra with different numbers of protons is though to be the reason for the peak change. The decreasing shielding with increasing pH for surface precipitates is probably due to the decreasing average number of P-O-Al linkages per tetrahedron combined with decreasing protonation like inner-sphere complexes.

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