Kinetic and equilibrium study of biosorption of lead from aqueous solutions by cyanobacteria Fischerellasp

The main objective of this study was to investigate the characteristics of Pb(II)biosorption bycyanobacteriaFischerella sp. The influence of various parameters such as pH, initial metal concentration, initial biomass concentration, contact time and temperature on biosorption was studied in batch experiments. The maximum uptake capacity was found to be 82 mg/g at optimum conditions(pH 6, initial metal concentration 0.2(g/L), initial biomass concentration175(mg/L) at 90 min. Langmuir and Freundlich models were used to describe biosorption isotherm, the experimental data fitted better with the Freundlich model(The correlation coefficient for the Freundlich adsorption isotherm was found to be 0.990). The biosorption followed pseudo second-order-rate kinetics(the correlation coefficient R2 for the pseudo-second-order model was found to be 0.989). IR analysis indicated that hydroxyl, sulfonic acid and amino groups, are responsible for the biosorption process.