Kinetics chemical weathering

When soil thickness is at the stable value (F), erosion is transport limited. Chemical weathering is also transport limited. This is, however, not because of reaction kinetics instead this limitation is primarily controlled by physical factors, most probably, restricted access of water to the primary minerals. 

Blum, A. E. and Stillings, L. L. (1995). Feldspar dissolution kinetics. In "Chemical Weathering Rates of Silicate Minerals" (A. F. White and S. L. 

In this chapter, we build on applications in the previous chapter (Chapter 26), where we considered the kinetics of mineral dissolution and precipitation. Here, we construct simple reactive transport models of the chemical weathering of minerals, as it might occur in shallow aquifers and soils. 

Blum, A.E. Stillings, L.L. 1995. Felsdpar dissolution kinetics. In White, A.F. Brantley, S.L. (ed.), Reviews in mineralogy, 31 Chemical weathering rates of silicate minerals, Mineralogical Society of America, USA, 291-352. 

Various devices can be used to determine the kinetics and rates of chemical weathering. In addition to the batch pH-stats, flow through columns, fluidized bed reactors and recirculating columns have been used (Schnoor, 1990). Fig. 5.15a illustrates the fluidized bed reactor pioneered by Chou and Wollast (1984) and further developed by Mast and Drever (1987). The principle is to achieve a steady state solute concentration in the reactor (unlike the batch pH-stat, where solute concentrations gradually build up). Recycle is necessary to achieve the flow rate to suspend the bed and to allow solute concentrations to build to a steady state. With the fluidized bed apparatus, Chou and Wollast (1984) could control the AI(III) concentration (which can inhibit the dissolution rate) to a low level at steady state by withdrawing sample at a high rate. 

Schnoor, J. L. (1990), "Kinetics of Chemical Weathering A Comparison of Laboratory and Field Weathering Rates", in W. Stumm, Ed., Aquatic Chemical Kinetics, Wiley-lnterscience, New York, pp. 475-504. 

Svendrup, H. A. (1990), The Kinetics of Base Cation Release due to Chemical Weathering, Lund University Press, Lund, Sweden. 

Sverdrup, H. Warfvinge, P. 1995. Estimating field weathering rates using laboratory kinetics. In White, A. F. Brantley, S. F. (eds) Chemical Weathering Rates of Silicate Minerals, 31. Mineralogical Society of America, Washington, 485-541. 

The application of chemical kinetics to weathering processes of soil minerals first appeared in the work of Wollast (1967). He concluded that the rate-limiting step for weathering of feldspars was diffusion (Chapter 7). This work touched off a lively debate that is still raging today about whether weathering of feldspars and ferromagnesian minerals is controlled by chemical reaction (CR) or diffusion. 

The fluidized bed reactor has been used by several researchers to study the kinetics of chemical weathering (Holdren and Speyer, 1985, 1987 Chou and Wollast, 1985). One of the advantages in using the fluidized bed reactors for studies of this type is that there are no strong concentration gradients in the aqueous and solid phases. Additionally, the concentration of the dissolved species can be maintained at levels well below saturation with respect to possible precipitates. This means, for example, that one could study mineral dissolution exclusively without secondary precipita-... 

Another class of models relevant to chemical weathering is based on the reaction path approach originally developed by Helgeson et al. (1970). EQ3/EQ6 (Wolery et al. (1990), PHREEQC (Parkhurst and Plummer, 1993), and PATHARC.94 (Gunter et al., 2000) are some codes currently used to describe the progressive reaction of primary silicates and the precipitation of secondary phases as a function of time and mass. These codes are discussed in Nordstrom (see Chapter 5.02). They commonly permit the introduction of user-defined silicate reaction rates. Such models also commonly consider solubility controls on reaction kinetics as defined by... 

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