ALAA SALMA, YAHYA SALMA, SAIDA SALMAN AND RAWA ABDALLAH
Abstract
In this study, 0.1g of powder of dead and live biomass of A. fumigatus, either raw or pretreated was used as a sorbent for biosorption of a commercial azo dye Acid Red 14, present in Lebanese pickles turnip solution. The sorption parameters in batch mode were optimized with respect to pH, particle size of A. fumigatus, temperature, agitation speed, adsorbent dose and equilibrium time; biosorption kinetics parameters were also determined. Optimum conditions of biosorption lead to an 87 % dye removal. Initial pH was about (3.0), agitation speed (250 rpm) and biomass concentration (0.2 g/50 mL) at 30±2 oC at 120 min. A comparison of pre-treatment methods revealed that pretreated biomass by acid could decolorize dye maximally (92%) followed by alkali (82%) and oxidants (75%) treatment. Kinetic study showed that the correlation coefficients (R2) values for Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were calculated to be 0.98 and 0.94 respectively, indicating that Langmuir could explain the sorption of Acid Red 14 by A. fumigatus better as compared to Freundlich isotherm.