Biosorption of the Copper and Cadmium Ions - a Study through Adsorption Isotherms Analysis

Abstract

In this work, the biosorption process of copper-cadmium ions binary mixture by using marine algae Sargassum filipendula was investigated. A set of experiments was performed to obtain equilibrium data for the given batch operational conditions - T=30°C, pH=5. The interpretation of equilibrium data was based on the binary adsorption isotherms models in the Langmuir and Freundlich forms. To evaluate the models parameters, nonlinear identification procedure was used based on the Least Square statistical method and SIMPLEX local optimizer. An analysis of the obtained results showed that the marine algae biomass has higher affinity to copper ions than to cadmium ones. The biomass maximum adsorption capacity for the binary system was about 1.16 meq/g.

Keywords

• Biosorption
• Equilibrium
• Copper
• Cadmium