Kinetic studies of Cd (II) and Pb (II) ions biosorption from aqueous media using untreated and chemically treated biosorbents.

Untreated and chemically treated Albizia coriaria, Erythrina abyssinica and Musa spp. were studied in batch for uptake of Cd(2+) and Pb(2+) ions at pH 2.0-9.0 and agitation time of 30-390 min. Optimum biosorption conditions were pH 4 for Pb(2+) ions and pH 5 for Cd(2+) ions, contact time was 3.5 hours at 24 ± 1 °C for 10 mg/L biosorbent dosage and initial metal ions concentration of 20 mg/L. Chemical treatment had a 10-17% biosorption efficiency enhancement for Cd(2+) ions and a 1.6-2.3% reduction effect for Pb(2+) ions. The sorption capacities for Cd(2+) and Pb(2+) ions for treated biosorbents were 1.760-1.738 mg g(-1) compared to 1.415-1.539 mg g(-1) for untreated materials. The pseudo second-order model suitably fitted the Cd(2+) and Pb(2+) ions biosorption data with regression coefficients (R(2)) of 0.9784-0.9999. Fitting of the Ho model to the experimental data showed that the biosorption mechanism for both metal ions studied was mainly a chemisorption process. Therefore, treated A. coriaria, E. abyssinica and Musa spp. were potential biosorbents for remediation of Cd(2+) ions and the untreated materials suitable for removing Pb(2+) ions from contaminated aqueous media.