Macroalgae On The Adsorption Of Heavy Metals

This research work is part of the project of "Exploit of High Efficiency Macroalgae Biosorbents" being supported by the special founds for new and high technology from Scientific Committee of Xiamen.Biosorption is a process that utilizes inexpensive active/dead biomass to sequester heavy metals and is particularly useful for the removal of contaminants from industrial effluents. Compared with conventional methods such as ion exchange and precipitation with lime , the biosorption process offers the advantages of low operating cost, minimization of the volume of chemical and biological sludge to be disposed of, high efficiency in detoxifying very dilute effluents. These advantages have served as the primary incentives for developing full-scale biosorption processes to clean up heavy-metal pollution. In this paper we studied the heavy metal biosorption of two macroalgaes: S.fusiforme and L. japonica.Chapter one is an overview of the past work in the fields, including advantages of the biosorption technology, the resources of the biomass, mechanism of the process, recovery of bisorbents and immobilization of the biomass.In chapter two, we introduced the materials and methods, including the introduction of the two macroalgaes and pre-treatments. The purpose of the pre-treatments is to improve surface characteristics of the organism in relation to their metal adsorbing mechanism. We used CaCla in the base of ion-exchange mechnism. We use AAS and ICP for elementsdetermination.A number of factors will affect efficiency of the biosorption, and thesefactors were studied in chapter three, including the PH value, initial biomass loading and content of heavy metal ions, ion strength of the solution, etc.Although the research for new and innovative treatment technologies has focus attention on the metal binding capacities of various biomass, the exact interaction between the ligands of the metal uptake process and the description of the thermal properties of the biosorption remain essentially unknown. In chapter four and five, we studied the isotherm and kinetic characters of the processes respectively.That's the summarization of the main work of this research. Biosorption technology is just developing rapidly, and is attractting more and more attention from scientists over the world, and we hope this work would be helpful for the development of the new technology.