Biosorption of Hg(II) and Cu(II) by biomass of dried Sargassum fusiforme in aquatic solution

The biosorption of heavy metals hg(ii) and cu(ii) from aquatic solution by biomass of dried sargassum fusiformewas studied in the paper. the sargassum fusiforme was able to absorb appreciable amount of mercury and copperfrom the aquatic solutions within 60 min of contact time with the metal solution and exhibited high removal ofmercury and copper at low equilibrium concentrations. the specific adsorption of both hg(ii) and cu(ii) increased atlow concentration of biomass and decreased when biomass concentration exceeded 2.0 g/l. the binding ofmercury followed freundlich model while copper supported langmuir isotherm for adsorption with their r2 valuesof 0.971 and 0.923, respectively. the maximum adsorption per unit masses of sargassum fusiforme (mg/l) atequilibrium (qmax) for hg(ii) and cu(ii) were calculated to be 30.86 and 7.69 mg/g, respectively. the biosorption bysargassum fusiforme was best described using a pseudo-second-order kinetic model for copper and mercury ions insolution in the study. the adsorption was ph dependent as the maximum mercury biosorption and copper adsorptionwas happened at solution ph of 8–10.