Biosorption of Lead by Aspergillus niger: Equilibrium, Kinetics and Process Mechanism

This paper describes the equilibrium, kinetics and process mechanism studies on biosorption of lead ions from aqueous solution using ‘Aspergillus niger’ in a batch process. The results indicate that biosorption of lead is influenced by various experimental parameters such as initial concentration of lead, amount of biomass used, variation in pH of solution and agitation speed. The lead uptake by biomass was quantitatively evaluated using sorption isotherms like Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm. The results indicate that Langmuir isotherm model describes the present data very well indicating favorable biosorption. Since the process follows pseudo second order kinetics, the mechanism of biosorption of lead by Aspergillus niger can be explained by shrinking core model.