Study of Cu(II) biosorption by dried activated sludge: effect of physico-chemical environment and kinetics study

Biosorption is a recent technology used to remove heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions. The biosorption of copper ions from aqueous solution by dried activated sludge was investigated in batch systems. Effect of solution pH, initial metal concentration and particle size range were determined. The suitable pH and temperature for studied conditions were determined as 4.0 and 20 °C, respectively. The theoretical max biosorption capacity of activated sludge was 294 mg g−1 at 20 °C for <0.063 mm particle size. The equilibrium data fitted very well to both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The pseudo first and second-order kinetic models were used to describe the kinetic data. The experimental data fitted to second-order kinetic model. The particle size and initial metal concentration were effected the biosorption capacity of dried activated sludge. An increase in the initial metal concentration increases of biosorption capacity, which also increases with decreasing particle size. Dried activated sludge has different functional groups according to the FT-IR results.