Regresar

Evaluation of the biosorbent power of corn leaf in the removal of heavy metal

Abstract:

The biotechnological processes have attracted the attention of the scientific community in the elimination of heavy metals, within these we find biosorption. In this work the corn leaf was evaluated as a biosorbent in the removal of lead and cadmium from the wastewater of a chemical laboratory. The effect of contact time, particle size, amount of biosorbent was studied and the respective kinetic and thermodynamic studies were carried out. The highest removal percentages are reached at 10 minutes, for both metals. With the particle size smaller than 425 microns the best results are obtained. As the amount of biomass increased, the removal was greater. The pseudo-second order model is the one that best reproduces the experimental data, with chemisorption being the controlling stage.