Abstract
The water contamination by toxic metal ions is a worldwide environmental problem. High concentrations are hazardous for all living organisms, causing many disorders and diseases and ecological damages to the surroundings. Biosorption is an innovative technology that employs inactive and dead biomass (bacteria, fungi, algae, biowaste) for the recovery of metals from aqueous solutions. Sulphate-reducing bacteria utilization is one of the options how to prepare applicable sorbent which removes metal ions from water. This material is created as a consequence of bacteria metabolism in anaerobic environment. The use of freely suspended biomass is often impractical and has some disadvantages. In contrast to this, application of immobilized biomass shows more benefits including increased mechanical strength, resistance to chemical environment, easy separation of cells and effluents, high biomass performance and repeated use in many adsorption/desorption cycles. Cell entrapment is the most widely used method for immobilization. In this technique, the cells are enclosed in a polymeric matrix which is porous enough to allow diffusion of substrate to the cells. The aim of this work was to examine and compare the sorption ability of biogenic iron sulphides created by sulphate-reducing bacteria in “free” and “entrapped” form. Precipitates were synthesized in reagent bottles with bacteria culture and growth media Postgate C, at 30 °C during 60 days, subsequently dried and analysed. Prepared samples were immobilized using sodium alginate. Sorption of cadmium from model solutions was realized in 100 ml Erlenmeyer flasks, with sorbent dose 1 g/l, during 24 hours. During experiments, the samples showed a satisfying stability and maximum adsorption capacity achieved 38 mg/g. The results refer to good sorption properties of immobilized samples and their potential for further practical use.
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