Remoção do íon Cd2+ por processo de biossorção em leito fixo usando levedura imobilizada em quitosana.

Abstract

The degration of aquatic ecosystems caused by metallic ions is related to the unbridled increase in industrial sector. Biosorption is an efficient and low cost alternative for the treatment of effluents contaminated by metallic ions, which are thrown by industries into the environment. An alternative in order to remove these ions into the liquid effluents is a process of biosorption in fixed bed columns using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast immobilized with Chitosan. Biosorption's kinetics experiments were conducted in agitated tanks using bioadsorbing, chitosan's spheres, free Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast and immobilized with chitosan to remove Cd2+ ion, whereas the equilibrium experiments of biosorption and in a fixed bed column, were conducted with immobilized yeast. Both pseudo-second order and Michaelis Menten models prevented a good adjustment to the experimental data, whereas to the equilibrium study, Langmuir's model was the one which better represented the adsorption's isotherm. The rupture curves got by Cd2+ ion concentration of up to 20 mg.L-1 show that the bed was far from reaching saturation. Nevertheless, by extanding the concentrations of 40-90 mg.L-1, the bed got closer to saturation and being checked the viability of using this bioadsorvent to treating effluents which contains Cd2+. The experimental planning techinique was used to evaluate the effects of concentration variables from the sinthetic aqueous solution of Cd2+ in the entry of the bed and flow of operation over a quantity adsorbed and the removal percentage. The flow operation effect was the most significant factor being followed by the concentration for the response variable amount absorbed, whereas only the flow variable from operation was statiscally significant about removal percentage. Mathematical models of Linear Driving Force and Thomas' satisfactorily described the breakthrough curves behavior.