Quantification of Adsorptive Performance of Sea Urchin Spines on Lead by Batch Process

Abstract

The present study investigates the adsorption capacity of Sea Urchin spine powder as a biosorbent for removing lead ions from an aqueous solution. The sea urchin spine is found to be most effective at a pH of 6 and a contact time of 57 minutes. The kinetic and isothermal models were used to evaluate the equilibrium biosorption data and finally understand the mechanism(s). The results show that the pseudo-first-order and intra-particle diffusion kinetic models provide a good correlation for the sorption of lead onto the sorbent. The peak biosorption of 83.61 % is attained at 57 min of agitation with 0.1 g/30 ml of 63 m size biosorbent mixed in 30 mL of solution (C₀ = 20 mg/L). The maximum biosorption capacity for lead is 14.367 mg g-1 indicating the adsorptive capacity of Sea Urchin spines under favorable process conditions.