The potential use of natural vs commercial biosorbent material to remediate stream waters by removing heavy metal contaminants
2019
Abstract The presence of high level of heavy metals in aquatic environment is a cause of ecological and environmental concern and thus their removal from water courses is environmentally essential. Four natural inexpensive biosorbents: macro
algae(
Fucus vesiculosus), crab shells (
Cancer pagurus), wood chippings and iron-rich soil were tested for copper (Cu 2+ ) and zinc (Zn 2+ ) removal from aqueous solutions. Batch equilibrations were performed at 1:100 w/v with different initial metal concentrations. Three macro
algaepre-treatments (unmodified (UM
algae), chemically treated (Ca-T
algae) and thermally treated (T-T
algae)) were additionally investigated for performance. The sorption capacities were compared with the commercial material
biocharand activated carbon. The maximum level of the sorbents for Cu 2+ uptake at 15.7 mM/l was attained by the
natural materialof UM
algae(72.37 ± 0.37 mg/g) > Ca-T
algae(66.77 ± 0.19 mg/g) > T-T
algae(63.06 ± 0.82 mg/g), followed by the commercial material activated carbon (36.71 ± 2.20 mg/g). The maximum level of the sorbents for Zn 2+ uptake at 15.3 mM/l was also achieved by the
natural materialof UM
algae(52.40 ± 0.80 mg/g) > Ca-T
algae(48.83 ± 2.01 mg/g) > T-T
algae(39.57 ± 0.80 mg/g) followed by the commercial material activated carbon (20.78 ± 1.63 mg/g) and
biochar(18.07 ± 1.09 mg/g). The results demonstrated that Cu 2+ and Zn 2+ were effectively removed by these biosorbents at all concentrations. However, at high metals concentrations, the
natural materialmacro
algaehad greater Cu 2+ and Zn 2+ sorption capacity than the conventional sorbent activated carbon, and the affinity of these natural biosorbents were greater for Cu 2+ than Zn 2+ . Hence, inexpensive natural and readily available materials showed potential as biosorbents to remediate polluted stream water of toxic metal contaminants.
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