Bioadsorption of copper and zinc with pre-treated and untreated dry biomass of Escherichia coli

Nowadays, new technologies are being developed for the removal of heavy metals, which are intended to have low operating costs and easy to implement. The copper and zinc bioadsorption in batch system was studies in pre-treated, with sodium hydroxide, and untreated Escherichia coli dried biomass. The E. coli was isolated and identified from water samples from the San Pedro river, Sonora, Mexico. The dry biomass of E. coli was pretreated with 0.1 N sodium hydroxide. The optimal biosorption conditions were at pH 5, 30 degrees C and 100 rpm. These studies demonstrated the effectiveness of the pre-treated biomass in determining the maximum bioadsorption capacity using the Langmuir model, and they were for copper of 204.49 mg/g and zinc of 151.97 mg/g, and for biomass untreated with copper and zinc were 107.52 mg/g and 125 mg/g, respectively. In addition, with the characterization by scanning electron microscopy and dispersive energy spectroscopy, the presence of copper and zinc were observed. The absorption bands by Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry confirmed carboxyl, hydroxyl, amino and phosphate groups on the surface of E. coli. The use of dry biomass of pre-treated Escherichia coli in this study, showed to be effective in the bioadsorption process.