Biosorption of Copper (II) from Electroplating Wastewaters by Aspergillus Terreus and Its Kinetics Studies
Varshney R1,*, Bhadauria S1 and Gaur MS2
1 Microbiology Research Lab, Department of Botany, R. B. S. College, Khandari, Agra-282004, India
2 Department of Physics, Hindustan College of Science & Technology, Farah, Mathura-281122, India
*Correspondance: E-mail: ratnika_bt@rediffmail.com; Fax: 0562-2881414
Keywords: Biosorption, heavy metals, soil fungi, wastewaters, bioremediation
Received 30 November 2010; accepted 2 February 2011; Published 24 February 2011; available online 12 March 2011
Summary
In present investigation, samples from wastewaters of Electroplating industry were collected and analyzed for the concentration of Cu2+ heavy metal. For the bioremediation of heavy metal, Aspergillus terreus fungal strain was used. The fungal strain was isolated from soil and found that it biosorbed 7.77 mg/l Cu2+ heavy metal from solution within 1 hour. Biosorption was sensitive to variations in pH and in the range investigated; metal binding was optimum at 4.0. A wastewater with a pH of 3.0 or above can be effectively treated for metal ion removal and the wastewater with pH lower than 3.0 would need pH adjustment. Biosorption isotherm data fitted better into Langmuir isotherm implicated monolayer adsorption existed for the experimental conditions used. Based on the Langmuir isotherm plots the maximum biosorption capacity (Qmax) value was calculated to be 19.46 mg/g at pH 4 for fungal biomass.