Abstract

Increasing interest in the development of biological materials for metal sorption led us to investigate the brown marine alga, Pilayella littoralis, as a biological sorbent. This work focuses on the harvest, preparation and evaluation of P. littoralis from Nahant beaches for use as a metal biosorbent. This biomass was used in batch tests with synthetic solutions. Its metal uptake properties, including metal binding capacity, the pH dependence of metal uptake and the kinetics of metal sorption, were investigated. Most metal sorption occurred within the first 5 min of exposure and the metals were optimally bound to the algae at pH 5.5. The algal binding capacities for Al(III), Cd(II), Co(II), Cr(VI), Cu(II), Fe(III), Ni(II) and Zn(II), were 2000, 430, 560, 90, 850, 700, 390 and 450 µmol g⁻¹ of dried biomass, respectively. Metals were desorbed with 0.12 mol l⁻¹ HCl and determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES).