Adsorption of zinc on manganite(γ-MnOOH): particle concentration effect and adsorption reversibility

The adsorption and desorption processes of Zn(Ⅱ) on γ-MnOOH as a function of particle concentrations(C p) were studied. An obvious C p effect was observed in this adsorption system. The degree of adsorption hysteresis increased greatly with the increasing of C p, indicating that the extent of the real metastable-equilibrium states deviating from the ideal equilibrium state was enhanced with the increasing of C p. The C p-reversibility relationship confirmed the metastable-equilibrium adsorption(MEA) inequality(Pan, 1998a), which was the core formulation of the MEA theory. Because the MEA inequality was based on the basic hypothesis of MEA theory that adsorption density Γ is not a state variable, the C p-reversibility relationship gave indirect evidence to the basic hypothesis of MEA theory.