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Title: Letter to the Editor

Author
item Goldberg, Sabine

Submitted to: Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Bulletin
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/20/2009
Publication Date: 5/12/2009
Citation: Goldberg, S.R. 2009. Letter to the Editor. Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Bulletin. 83:1-2.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Elementary chemistry errors are contained in: Adsorption sequence of toxic inorganic anions on a soil by S. Saeki published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (2008) 81:508-512. In the article, the author asserts emphatically that he is studying As(V) not As(III) adsorption, yet he has prepared his As solutions from NaAsO2, clearly a trivalent As(III) salt. Therefore, the author is, in fact, studying the adsorption of As(III). Throughout the manuscript comparisons to literature results of As(V) behavior are made, all clearly invalid. The adsorption behavior of As(III) and As(V) has already been shown to be very different by numerous authors. To make matters worse, As(III) is unstable in soil systems and would be expected to convert, at least partially, to As(V) during the course of the author’s experiment.