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Biosorption of heavy metal using brown seaweed in a regenerable continuous column
Author(s) -
Rajamohan N.,
Sivaprakash B.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.202
Subject(s) - biosorption , sorption , cadmium , sorbent , desorption , volumetric flow rate , metal , chemistry , metal ions in aqueous solution , aqueous solution , adsorption , chromatography , nuclear chemistry , environmental engineering , analytical chemistry (journal) , environmental science , thermodynamics , physics , organic chemistry
Abstract This paper deals with the experimental investigation on removal of cadmium [Cd(II)] ions from an aqueous solution using a marine alga, Sargassum tenerrimum , in a fixed‐bed column. The effects of the inlet flow rate and the sorbent bed height on the biosorption of Cd(II) ions were studied. The dynamics of column biosorption was modeled by the bed depth service time (BDST) model and the Thomas model. The BDST model was used to study the dynamic sorption behavior at different bed heights, whereas the Thomas model was used to fit the column biosorption data at different flow rates. The uptake capacity and the breakthrough time increase with an increase in the bed height. The sorption capacities of the bed per unit volume and the rate constant K a were found to be 3819.42 mg/l and 0.0353 mg/h respectively. In flow rate experiments, the results confirmed that the metal uptake capacity and the metal removal efficiency of S. tenerrimum decreased with increasing flow rate. The Thomas model was used to fit the column biosorption data at different flow rates and model constants were evaluated. After five sorption–desorption cycles, the selected marine alga exhibited a high cadmium uptake of 63.43 mg/g. Copyright © 2008 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.