Biosorption of Copper and Zinc by Biomass of Marine Brown Algae in Cheju Island

Kam, Sangkyu; Lee, Donghwan; Lee, Mingyu

Environmental Engineering Research 1997;2(3): 181-190.

Sangkyu Kam^†, Donghwan Lee, and Mingyu Lee

¹Department of Environmental Engineering, Cheju National University, Cheju Korea, 690-756
²Department of Chemistry, Dongeui University, Pusan Korea, 608-714
³Department of Chemical Engineering, Pukyong National University, Pusan Korea, 608-737

Corresponding Author: Sangkyu Kam ,

Received: April 6, 1997; Accepted: July 6, 1997.

ABSTRACT

Biomass of nonliving, dried marine brown algae Undaria pinnatiSda, Hizikia fusiforme, and Sargassum fulvelum harvested in the sea near Cheju Island, were investigated for their sorption performances of copper and zinc. The copper and zinc uptakes by the biosorbent materials increased with increasing the amount of biomass added, the metal concentration and pH in the range of C_i 10-500 mg/L. Among the biosorbent materials used in this study, the copper and zinc uptakes in the solutions with no pH adjustment decreased in the following sequence: U. pinnatifida ) H. fasiibrme ) S. fulvelum. The copper uptake by biosorbent materials was higher than zinc uptake by those. The copper and zinc uptakes by biosorbent materials followed the Langmuir isotherm better than the Freundlich isotherm.