RT Journal Article
T1 Removal of copper from aqueous solutions by biosorption onto pine sawdust
A1 Orozco Fontán, Clara Isabel
A1 Freire Leira, María Sonia
A1 Gómez Díaz, Diego
A1 González Álvarez, Julia
K1 Copper
K1 Heavy metal
K1 Sawdust
K1 Pinus radiata
K1 Biosorption
AB Untreated Pinus radiata sawdust was investigated for the removal of Cu+2 ions from aqueous solutions. The biomass was characterized by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass (ICP-MS) spectrometry and by Scanning Electron Microscopy with an Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), X-Ray crystalline powder Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, before and after adsorption. The influence of contact time (up to equilibrium), adsorbent dose (1–50 g/L), initial metal ion concentration (5–300 mg/L) and pH (2–8) on copper sorption efficiency was studied through batch experiments. The results demonstrated that adsorption equilibrium is reached in less than 2 h and the best conditions (Cu+2 removal percentage, 93.4% and adsorption capacity, 0.82 mg/g) were achieved by increasing the adsorbent dose up to 5 g/L and the solution pH up to 7, and decreasing the initial metal concentration to 5 mg/L. The adsorption was optimized by means of a Doehlert experimental design analyzing the influence of adsorbent dose (5–15 g/L) and copper initial concentration (5–45 mg/L) on adsorption efficiency. Kinetic data were satisfactorily fitted to the second-order kinetic model. Intraparticle diffusion model demonstrated that different stages are involved in the adsorption process. Langmuir isotherms fitted satisfactorily the copper bioadsorption equilibrium data. Desorption studies achieved high efficiencies up to 94.5% and the possibility of sawdust regeneration was studied with four adsorption-desorption cycles. Thus, this study evidenced that sawdust is a promising efficient, renewable and economic adsorbent for metal removal and its use for that purpose constitutes an alternative for its management and valorization
PB Elsevier
SN 2352-5541
YR 2023
FD 2023
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30318
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30318
LA eng
NO Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy  32 (2023) 101016
NO This research was funded by Consellería de Educación, Universidade e Formación Profesional, Xunta de Galicia, grant number ED431B 2020/39
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026