Biosorptive removal of mercury(II) from aqueous solution using lichen (Xanthoparmelia conspersa) biomass: Kinetic and equilibrium studies

The potential use of the lichen biomass (Xanthoparmelia conspersa) to remove mercury(II) ions from aqueous solution by biosorption was evaluated using the batch method. Effects of pH, contact time, biomass concentration and temperature on the removal of Hg(II) ions were studied. The Langmuir isotherm models defined the equilibrium data precisely compared to Freundlich model and the maximum biosorption capacity obtained was 82.8 mg g−1. From the D-R isotherm model, the mean free energy was calculated as 9.5 kJ mol−1. It shows that the biosorption of Hg(II) ions onto X. conspersa biomass was taken place by chemical ion-exchange. Experimental data were also performed to the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. The results indicated that the biosorption of Hg(II) on the lichen biomass followed well the second-order kinetics. Thermodynamic parameters, ΔGo, ΔHo and ΔSo indicated the Hg(II) sorption to be exothermic and spontaneous with decreased randomness at the solid-solution interface. Furthermore, the lichen biomass could be regenerated using 1 M HCl, with up to 85% recovery, which allowed the reuse of the biomass in ten biosorption-desorption cycles without any considerable loss of biosorptive removal capacity.