Biosorption of Heavy Metal lons by Biomass of Marine Brown Algae in Cheju using Their Immobilization Techniques: Biosorption of Copper by Undaria pinnatifida

The biosorption performances of copper were investigated by the immobilized biomass of nonliving marine brown algae Undaria pinnatifida by each of the Ca-alginate method(Ca-ALG), Ba-alginate method(Ba-ALG), polyethylene glycol method(PEG), and carrageenan method (CARR). The copper removal performance increased but the copper uptake decreased as the biomass amount was increased. However, the copper uptake by the immobilized biomass increased with increasing initial copper concentration. Among the immobilization methods, the copper uptake decreased in the following sequence: Ca-ALG > Ba-ALG > PEG > CARR. The pattern of copper uptake by the immobilized biomass fitted the Langmuir isotherm better than the Freundlich isotherm. Desorption of deposited copper with 0.05 ~0.5M HCI, resulted in no changes of the copper uptake capacity of the immobilized biomass by the immobilization methods except for PEG, through five subsequent biosorption/desorption cycles. There was no damage to the immobilized biomass which retained its macroscopic appearance in repeated copper uptake/elution cycles.