György Balázs, Bujdoš Marek, Vojtková Hana, Diviš Pavel, Slaný Michal, Matúš Peter, Urík Martin
Institute of Laboratory Research on Geomaterials, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynská dolina, Ilkovičova 6, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia.
Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Mining and Geology, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 17. listopadu 2172/15, 708 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Polymers (Basel). 2024 Nov 28;16(23):3340. doi: 10.3390/polym16233340.
This study investigates the biosorption capabilities of kefir grains, a polysaccharide-based byproduct of the fermentation process, for removing copper(II) and arsenic(V) from contaminated water. Unlike traditional heavy-metal removal methods, which are typically expensive and involve environmentally harmful chemicals, biopolymeric materials such as kefir grains provide a sustainable and cost-effective alternative for adsorbing hazardous inorganic pollutants from aqueous solutions. Our experimental results revealed significant differences in the sorption capacities of two types of kefir grains. Grains of milk kefir outperformed water kefir, particularly in copper(II) removal, achieving up to 95% efficiency at low copper concentrations (0.16 mmol·L) and demonstrating a maximum sorption capacity of 49 µmol·g. In contrast, water kefir grains achieved only 35.5% maximum removal efficiency and exhibited lower sorption capacity. For arsenic(V) removal, milk kefir grains also showed superior performance, removing up to 56% of arsenic in diluted solution with experimental sorption capacities reaching up to 20 µmol·g, whereas water kefir grains achieved a maximum removal efficiency of 34.5%. However, these findings also suggest that while kefir grains show potential as low-cost biosorbents, further modifications are needed to enhance their competitiveness for large-scale water treatment applications.
本研究考察了开菲尔粒（一种发酵过程中基于多糖的副产品）从受污染水中去除铜（II）和砷（V）的生物吸附能力。与传统的重金属去除方法不同，传统方法通常成本高昂且涉及对环境有害的化学物质，而诸如开菲尔粒之类的生物聚合材料为从水溶液中吸附有害无机污染物提供了一种可持续且具有成本效益的替代方案。我们的实验结果显示，两种开菲尔粒的吸附能力存在显著差异。牛奶开菲尔粒的表现优于水开菲尔粒，尤其是在去除铜（II）方面，在低铜浓度（0.16 mmol·L）下效率高达95%，最大吸附容量为49 µmol·g。相比之下，水开菲尔粒的最大去除效率仅为35.5%，且吸附容量较低。对于去除砷（V），牛奶开菲尔粒也表现出优异性能，在稀释溶液中能去除高达56%的砷，实验吸附容量达20 µmol·g，而水开菲尔粒的最大去除效率为34.5%。然而，这些研究结果也表明，虽然开菲尔粒作为低成本生物吸附剂具有潜力，但还需要进一步改进以提高其在大规模水处理应用中的竞争力。
