“…The polar carboxyl group is primarily responsible for their relatively high chemical activity and dominates in interactions with clay mineral surfaces. Many experimental studies have been devoted to the study of the sorption/desorption processes of phenoxyalkanoic acid herbicides in soils and/or soil components, respectively (Pignatello and Xing, 1995;Benoit et al, 1996Benoit et al, , 1998Bolan and Baskaran, 1996;de Paolis and Kukkonen, 1997;Sannino et al, 1997;Susarla et al, 1997;Socias-Viciana et al, 1999;Celis and Koskinen, 1999a and b;Celis et al, 1999;Haberhauer et al, 2000Haberhauer et al, , 2001Hsu et al, 2000;Inacio et al, 2001;Clausen et al, 2001;Dubus et al, 2001;Vasudevan et al, 2002;Spadotto and Hornsby, 2003). These experiments describe sorption of phenoxyalkanoic acid herbicides from aqueous solutions at various solid matrixes and provide the distribution coefficient K D and, eventually, the adsorption energy or enthalpy that is calculated from fits to experimental data.…”