Bio Sorption of Cadmium (Ii) from Aqueous Solutions By Free and Immobilized Biomass of Penicillium Citrinum |

ABSTRACT:

In recent years removal of heavy metals from wastewaterstreams is of worldwide concern. Studies revealed that biosorption seems to bemore efficient and cost effective process inspite of conventional chemicalbased removal methods. The present study explores the ability and to evaluatethe comparative potential of free and immobilized biomass of Penicilliumcitrinum for Cd (II) removal from its aqueous solution of concentration 20 ppmin batch mode. Experiments were conducted to optimize the various parameterslike pH, biosorbent dose, contact time and initial metal ion concentration inbatch mode with the help of free and immobilized biomass of selected fungus.Biosorption of Cd(II) was found to be pH dependent and maximum biosorption wasobserved at pH 6 by both free and immobilized biomass. Immobilised biomass wasfound to have more biosorption efficiency in comparison to free biomass. Thisis due to sorption capacity of alginate beads. The biosorption of Cd (II) wasbest fitted with the pseudo second order kinetic model with regressioncoefficient more than 0.99.  Langmuir andFreundlich isotherms model fits well with the experimental data. All theseobservations indicate that the immobilized biomass of Penicillum citrinum couldbe used as a suitable biosorbent and serve as baseline data for desingning a treatmentprocess for removal of Cd (II) from wastewater.