Abstract
As the search for renewable resources for removal of pollutants from the environment grows, the use of biological sorbents has received a great deal of attention. Biological sorbents such as human hair have been explored due to their ready availability, renewability and effectiveness. This manuscript reports a study of the dynamics of copper(II) ions uptake by human hair using conductivity and pH measurements. The adsorption of these ions demonstrated a logarithmic behaviour, resembling first order kinetics, although the analysis showed a deviation from the first order kinetics. The maximum uptake of 288 µg g -1 was reached after about 120 minutes of static equilibration using a solution of 100 ppm. Interestingly the adsorption seems to be intermediate between a simple chemisorption and ion exchange as evidenced by a deviation from the linearity when conductivity was plotted against the pH measurements. However there was a significant correlation (R 2 = 0.9926) between conductivity and pH in the case of a classical ion exchange resin – Amberlite CG 50.
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