A theoretical and experimental study on the P-adsorption capacity of Phoslock™

The main objective of this study is to investigate the adsorption process from both experimental and modeling point of view of phosphate onto Phoslock™, an increasingly used worldwide restoration tool to control phosphorus from natural water ecosystems. Bench-scale batch experiments were performed to examine its efficiency as a phosphate adsorbent and detailed simulations were carried out, allowing for a deep insight of the removal process. The adsorption efficiency calculated by the simulations is 87.41%, being in excellent agreement with that experimentally measured (approx. 87%). However, it is important to notice the discrepancy between experimental measures and simulation estimates. Although the agreement is perfect for T = 25 °C, it becomes more and more poor as temperature decreases, approaching approx. 10% difference for the low temperature of 10 °C. This inconsistency between experiments and model can be attributed to the internal inefficiencies of unit cell approach, which in particular overestimates the adsorption efficiency.