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Development of sorbent materials for removing heavy metals from mining wastewater

Abstract:

Contamination by heavy metals is surely one of the most serious environmental problems. Industries such as mining produce waste containing heavy metals and these end up being transferred to the environment due to improper handling or disposal. Biosorption is one of the most promising technologies in the removal of heavy metals, not only for its low cost, but because it is a quick process that can treat large volumes of water with low concentrations of metal effectively. To study the adsorption mechanism is necessary to have information about the physical and chemical structure of the cell wall of biomass, functional groups present, the type and size of pores, polysaccharide chains, etc. In this paper the characterization of bagazo from sugar cane, corn cob and coconut mesocarp is done, since they are residual advantage for metal biosorption. Different techniques for determining the physical and chemical properties of the biosorbents were applied. The Results gave that the point of zero charge for the bagazo was 6.11 to 3.87 and cob 4.79 coconut. It was verified by the titration method the point of zero charge. BOEHM evidenced method predominant concentration of the acid sites on the surface in all cases. Determination of functional groups in the biosorbent under study was performed by IR spectrophotometer, which was demonstrated that the predominant functional groups include cellulose and lignin.