Biosorption of Cadmium by Fucus spiralis

Abstract

Environmental Context. Conventional processes for the removal of heavy metals from wastewaters generally involves chemical precipitation of metals (changing the pH) followed by a period to allow the metal precipitates to settle and be separated. These processes are inefficient when the metals are at a low concentration and still demand handling and disposal of toxic metal sludges. An alternative method for heavy metal removal is adsorption onto a biological material, biosorption. The biological materials, including agricultural byproducts, bacteria, fungi, yeast, and algae, all which take up heavy metals in substantial quantities, are relatively inexpensive, widely available, and from renewable sources. However, biological materials are complex and the active mechanisms often unclear. Cadmium biosorption properties of nonliving, dried brown marine macroalga Fucus spiralis from Galician coast (northwest Spain) have been investigated. The biosorption capacity of the alga strongly depends on solution pH; the uptake is almost negligible at pH ≤ 2 and reaches a plateau at around pH 4.0. Cadmium biosorption kinetics by F. spiralis is relatively fast, with 90% of total adsorption taking place in less than one hour. A pseudo second order mechanism has been proved to be able to predict the kinetic behaviour of the biosorption process. The effect of initial cadmium ion concentration, alga dose, solution pH, and temperature on the biosorption kinetics has been studied. The Langmuir, Freundlich, Langmuir–Freundlich, and Tóth isotherms were used to fit the experimental data and to find out the adsorption parameters. Acid–base properties of the alga have been studied potentiometrically in order to calculate the number of acidic groups and the apparent pK value by using Katchalsky model. The pK obtained is comparable with typical values associated to the ionization of carboxyl groups of alginates, supporting the implication of these groups in the biosorption process.