Assessing metal sorption on the marine alga Pilayella littoralis

Increasing interest in the development of biological materials for metal so rption led us to investigate the brown marine alga, Pilayella littoralis, a s a biological sorbent. This work focuses on the harvest, preparation and e valuation of P. littoralis from Nahant beaches for use as a metal biosorben t. 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 me tal sorption occurred within the first 5 min of exposure and the metals wer e 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 2 000, 430, 560, 90, 850, 700, 390 and 450 mu mol g(-1) of dried biomass, res pectively. Metals were desorbed with 0.12 mol l(-1) HCl and determined by i nductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES).