Characteristics of uranium sorption on illite in a ternary system: effect of phosphate on adsorption

The effects of pH, sorbent dosage, total phosphorus concentration, initial uranium concentration, shaking time, temperature, and uranium species of a solution of illite for uranium adsorption were investigated with static experimental methods. The sorption process is a nonlinear multi-layer sorption on the non-uniform surface of illite, dominated by chemical ion-exchange adsorption, an endothermic and spontaneous process that increases entropy. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model can depict the sorption of uranium on illite well. This study is expected to provide theoretical support for research on the sorption mechanism of uranium on illite in plurality systems. (author)