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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V3 #204
>
Mark Fisher asked:
> Does anyone know the solubility of hydroxyapatite, and how
> pH-sensitive is this reaction? If it only occurs at high pH, then it
> isn't really feasible for aquarium use. Would the addition of Ca be
> as effective as a phosphate-absorbing resin?
>
Under favorable conditions, hydroxylapatite is essentially insoluble. I
turned around a calculation (perhaps a little too quickly?) and found that
at pH 8 with 4 degrees of general hardness (all as calcium)
hydroxylapatite solubility would allow something like 0.6 part per
trillion (not a typo) of HPO4 in solution. With 8 degrees of general
hardess this drops to about 0.2 parts per trillion.
If you want to check my numbers, for the reaction:
Ca5(PO4)3(OH) + 4 H+ = H2O + 3 HPO4-2 + 5 Ca+2
Log(K) = -3.421
Below a pH of 7, H2PO4 rather than HPO4 is the primary phosphate species.
All that aside, I wasn't aware that hydroxylapatite played a role in water
treatment. Someone might set me straight on that. Under natural
conditions apatite (usually fluorapatite rather than hydroxylapatite)
forms mostly from replacement of carbonates, not from direct
precipitation. I suspect there may be kinetic problems with the direct
precipitation of apatite.
Were I to pick a calcium phosphate salt that might precipitate directly
from solution I'd probably look to something simpler, like CaHPO4.2H20
which is actually fairly soluble (316 mg/l in cool water according to my
CRC handbook). Otherwise I'd look for other mechanisms, like
coprecipitation or adsorption and sedimentation for the decrease in
phosphorus concentrations during water treatment.
Roger Miller