Pretreated Biomass of Marine Macroalgae at Low Cost High Efficiency Adsorbent for Heavy Metal Ions

Environmental pollution from industrial wastewater that contains heavy metals is an important issue in many countries. Cost effective technologies for the removal and recovery of the heavy metals are needed. Recently, much interest has been devoted to the processes of biosorption of heavy metals, in which various types of biomass, such as bacteria, fungi, and algae, are used as adsorbents for heavy metal ions. In this paper, the pretreated biomass (biosorbent) of a group of marine macroalgae was evaluated for its biosorption properties. The chemical and mechanical stabilities of the biomass were much improved by using pretreatment methods. The microstructures of the biomass were obtained by using electron microscopy. The heavy metal uptake capacities of the biosorbents ranged from 0.8-1.5 mmol/g (dry wt) for a number of divalent heavy metal ions. The capacities were higher than most other types of biomass and were comparable to commercial ion exchange resins. The kinetics of the bisorption process and the fixed-bed breakthrough curves were also studied. This study indicated that the biosorbents derived from the biomass of marine macroalgae could be used as highly effective adsorbent for the removal and recovery of heavy metal ions from industrial wastewater.

並列關鍵字

Biosorption ； Heavy Metal ； Marine Algae ； Wastewater Treatment

國際替代計量

全文下載

主題瀏覽