Adsorption of Cu (II) and Cd (II) from aqueous solutions by chitosan immobilized in alginate beads

Abstract

A new sorbent – chitosan immobilised in alginate (ALG-CHz) was used as an adsorbent for the Cd2+ and Cu2+ heavy metal ions removal from aqueous solutions. The research has shown, that in case of the new sorbent the pH of the solution does not affect the adsorption effectiveness of either the Cd2+ as well as Cu2+ ions, what widens the possibilities of its use. For the determination of maximum sorption capacity of the tested sorbent the Sips model was used. It has shown the best fit to the experimental data, determined based on the ARE value. The values of the sorption capacities calculated from the model were 527.3 mg/g d.m for Cu2+ and 207.0 mg/g d.m. for Cd2+.