Adsorption of heavy metals by brewery biomass

Abstract

In this work, biosorption of lead, copper and cadmium by waste brewery yeast has been studied. The adsorption capacity for lead, copper and cadmium on the biomass increased with the increasing temperature and the maximum uptakes were 0.465 mmolPb/g (96.4 mg/g), 0.769 mmolCu/g (48.9 mg/g) and 0.127 mmolCd/g (14.3 mg/g) at 308 K. The Langmuir isotherm, favorable type, and the pseudo second-order kinetic model represent our experimental data very well. The heat of biosorption was evaluated from the Langmuir isotherm equation, and the biosorption of lead, copper and cadmium was endothermic reaction.