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Biosorption of chromium (VI) and iron (II) by acid-based modified Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis: isotherms and thermodynamics

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Abstract

The removal of chromium (VI) and iron (II) was investigated using acid-pretreated Chlorella vulgaris (CV) and Spirulina platensis (SP) biomass from an aqueous solution. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area of the pretreated biosorbents 8.125 and 11.215 m2/g for CV-H2SO4 and SP-H2SO4 showed improvement as compared to the untreated biosorbents 1.513 and 2.648 m2/g for CV-raw and SP-raw, respectively. The Fourier transform infrared analyses exhibited some new peaks on the surfaces of the biosorbents after the pretreatment such as 3288, 3083, 1155, 699, 668, and 610 cm−1 which perhaps facilitated the removal of the metal ions. The optimum biosorbent dosage was 0.4 g with the maximum removal of chromium (VI) and iron (II) being 100% at pH 6 and 3, respectively. The X-ray diffractometry analyses showed that the biosorbents were amorphous solids. The desorption study revealed 0.1 M HNO3 as the best eluent for recovering the biosorbed metal ions with 75.5%. The thermodynamics analysis showed that the biosorption of chromium (VI) was nonspontaneous with SP-H2SO4 and CV-H2SO4. At low temperature (T < Teq), the values for ΔHo, ΔSo, and ΔGo parameters are 41.98 kJ/mol, 135.28 kJ/mol/K, and 2.59, 2.20, 1.75 and 1.88 kJ/mol. The equilibrium and kinetic data were best described by the Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, respectively. The Freundlich isotherm model confirmed the favorability of the biosorption process with n values 3.9061, 4.7094, 3.3185, and 3.8260. This study revealed that pretreated Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis are suitable, efficient, and eco-friendly biomass for the remediation of environmental pollutants.

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Funding

The authors thank the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (No.2020CFB517), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2019A1515110350) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51908436) for supporting this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources Processing and Environment, Wuhan University of Technology, Luoshi Road 122, Wuhan, 430070, China

    B. I. Musah, Y. Xu, C. Liang & L. Peng

  2. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Luoshi Road 122, Wuhan, 430070, China

    B. I. Musah, Y. Xu, C. Liang & L. Peng

  3. China Energy Conservation DADI Environmental Remediation Co., Ltd, Xueqing Road 8, Haidian, 100000, Beijing, China

    P. Wan

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  1. B. I. Musah
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Contributions

BIM contributed to conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, reviewing, writing—original draft, editing and revision; YX contributed to editing, software, resources, and data curation; PW helped with methodology, software, and formal analysis; CL contributed to software, formal analysis, and visualization; LP helped with supervision, methodology, funding acquisition, resources, and editing.

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Correspondence to L. Peng.

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Editorial responsibility: Samareh Mirkia.

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Musah, B.I., Wan, P., Xu, Y. et al. Biosorption of chromium (VI) and iron (II) by acid-based modified Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis: isotherms and thermodynamics. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 19, 11087–11102 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03873-3

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