Biosorption of cobalt(II) with sunflower biomass from aqueous solutions in a fixed bed column and neural networks modelling

•At 30 min. Ct/Co reached 0.82, 0.91 and 0.94 for the values of 8, 14 and 19 ml/min.•The Ct/Co reached 0.82, 0.58 and 0.43 when the bed depth was 5, 10 and 15 cm.•Biosorption of Co++ on the Sunflower biomass increased the zeta potential values.•The Co++ biosorbated on the Sunflower biomass considerably shifted FTIR spectra.•The determination coefficient (R2) of the ANN model was defined to be 0.96.

The effects of inlet cobalt(II) concentration (20–60 ppm), feed flow rate (8–19 ml/min) and bed height (5–15 cm), initial solution pH (3–5) and particle size (0.25

Graphical abstractThe comparison between experimental and simulated data from the ANN belonging to all of the parameters is given in following figure. Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide