Multicomponent biosorption of heavy metals using fluidized bed of algal biomass

Abstract EN

This paper aims to study the biosorption for removal of lead, cadmium, copper and arsenic ions using algae as a biosorbent.

A series of experiments were carried out to obtain the breakthrough data in a fluidized bed reactor.

The minimum fluidization velocities of beds were found to be 2.27 and 3.64 mm/s for mish sizes of 0.4-0.6 and 0.6-1 mm diameters, respectively.

An ideal plug flow model has been adopted to characterize the fluidized bed reactor.

This model has been solved numerically using MATLAB version 6.5.

The results showed a well fitting with the experimental data.

Different operating conditions were varied: static bed height, superficial velocity and particle diameter.

The breakthrough curves were plotted for each metal.

Pb2+ showed the largest breakthrough time compared with others, while Cd2+ had the lowest value.