Biosorption characteristics of Spirulina and Chlorella cells to accumulate heavy metals

Abstract

The heavy metal biosorption of dried Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis-Spirulina maxima cells was studied under various experimental conditions. The effect of biosorbent dosage, pH, adsorption time, temperature, initial metal concentration on biosorption was studied. Biosorption process can be divided into two parts: the first part follows zero-order, the second part pseudo second-order kinetics. Characterization of biosorption equilibrium was evaluated with Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich models using non-linear regression. The optimum pH range was found to be 5.0 − 6.0 for Pb(II) and 4.0 − 6.0 for Cu(II) and Cd(II) adsorption. The maximum adsorption capacities for Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cu(II) were 144, 161 and 138 mg g-1 by Chlorella cells and 370, 201 and 165 by Spirulina cells, based on the experimental data. The same values for activated carbon were 86, 134 and 43 mg g-1, respectively.

Keywords

• algae
• kinetics
• isotherm
• Langmuir
• Dubinin-Radushkevich
• activated carbon