In this study, we evaluated the performance of phosphate-functionalized silica in adsorbing uranium and provided insights into optimizing the initial conditions of the uranium solution (concentration and pH), which are often overlooked in uranium adsorption studies. While most studies take into account the effect of pH on both the surface charge of the adsorbents and the dissolved speciation of uranium in solution, they often overlook the formation of solid phases such as β-UO2(OH)2 (cr) and UO3· 2H2O(cr), leading to an overestimation of the adsorption capacity. To address this issue, we considered the speciation of U(VI) calculated using thermodynamic data. Our findings suggest that it is reasonable to evaluate the adsorption performance at pH 4 and concentration below 1.35 mM. The formation of β-UO2(OH)2 (cr) starts at 23 μM (pH 5) and 1 μM (pH 6) and increases sharply with increasing concentration. To avoid interference from the formation of solid phases, experiments should be conducted at lower concentrations, which in turn require very small msorbent/Vsolution ratios. However, controlling small amounts of sorbent can be challenging, and increasing the volume of the solution can generate significant amounts of radioactive waste. We also used UV-vis spectra analysis to investigate the formation of solid phases. We found that a 100 mg L-1 uranium solution resulted in the formation of colloidal particles in the solid phase after 2.5 hours at pH 6, while at pH 4, no significant changes in absorbance were observed over 120 hours, indicating a stable ion phase. Based on these conditions, we obtained an excellent adsorption capacity of 110 mg g-1.