Enhancing Biosorption Characteristics of Marine Green Algae (Ulva lactuca)for Heavy Metals Removal by Alkaline Treatment

Laura Bulgariu,Dumitru Bulgariu

doi:10.4172/2155-9821.1000146

Abstract

The biosorption characteristics of alkaline treated marine green algae (Ulva lactuca) have been studied for the removal of Pb(II), Zn(II) and Co(II) from aqueous solution, at room temperature. Batch experiments were performed to examine the effect of NaOH concentration used for treatment, initial heavy metals concentration and contact time, in comparison with untreated algae. The biosorption capacity of alkaline treated marine green algae increases with increasing of NaOH concentration, up to 0.6 mol L-1, when an improvement of biosorption capacity with 11.75% for Pb(II), 60.64% for Zn(II) and 62.53% for Co(II) respectively, was obtained. The Langmuir model provides best correlation of equilibrium experimental data, and the pseudo-second order describes well the biosorption kinetics of considered heavy metals. The heavy metal ions could be easily desorbed from loaded biosorbent, and this may be reuse at least in three biosorption/desorption cycles.

Highlights

Industrial activities often produce wastewater containing large amounts of heavy metals that are discharged into environment, and that become an important source of pollution
A slightly decrease of the mean biosorption energy values can be observed in case of alkaline treated marine green algae, which is probably determined by the increment of the availability of functional groups from biosorbent surface for heavy metals biosorption
The results presented above shows that in case of alkaline treated marine green algae, the required time for the biosorption process is significant lower

Summary

Introduction

Industrial activities often produce wastewater containing large amounts of heavy metals that are discharged into environment, and that become an important source of pollution. An increase of the amounts of heavy metals retained on mass unit of biosorbent with increasing of initial concentration can be observed for both untreated and alkaline treated marine green algae.

Results

Conclusion