Surface Complexation and Reactivity of Ferrihydrite in Relation to its Surface and Mineral Structure, with Applications to Natural Systems

Ferrihydrite (Fh) is the most important iron (hydr)oxide from the perspective of regulating the bioavailability and mobility of ions in the natural environment. Its existence was already known in the nineteenth century. Van Bemmelen and Klobbie (1892) studied the composition of what they called in French “Oxyde Ferrique Humide Amorphe” (Van Bemmelen and Klobbie 1896), being different from “Hydroxyde Ferrique Cristallin”. At about the same time (1895), X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, but their use for unraveling the structures of crystalline Fe (hydr)oxides and ferrihydrite was yet to come. In 1912, Max von Laue reported that...