REMEDIATION OF CADMIUM IONS FROM THE CONTAMINATED AQUEOUS MEDIA BY USING DEAD BIOMASS OFBACILLUS SUBTILIS

Abstract

Aquatic systems are severely polluted by heavy metal pollutants which results in worsening the quality of water which arises as a serious threat that needs to cope up by the world. These toxicants show detrimental effects on all life forms which leads to disturbance of the ecosystems. Therefore, there is a vital need to clean the polluted environment by developing new innovative approaches for the remediation of water systems. In the current study,batch experiments were performed to check the potential of biosorbentBacillus subtilisfor the biosorption of cadmium metal ions from contaminated aqueousmedia and the favorable environment for the highest removal (87.50 %) of cadmium ions were obtained after 60 minutes of equilibrium time at pH 5, 0.2 g biomass and 20 mg/L of cadmium concentration. The experimental adsorption data were better fitted towards the Langmuir model for Cd (R2= 0.9938)than the Freundlich model, while the data related to chemical kinetics obtained by pseudo first and second order equations. The maximum biosorption capacity achieved byBacillus subtilis for cadmium metal was found 51.8 mg/g. Hence, this study suggested that Bacillus subtilis proved to be an effective biosorbent for the mitigation of cadmium ions from aquatic solutions.