Vicentius Ochie Arief, Kiki Trilestari, Jaka Sunarso, Nani Indraswati, Suryadi Ismadji
A significant number of biosorption studies on the removal of heavy metal from aque-ous solutions have been conducted worldwide. Nearly all of them have been directed towards optimizing biosorption parameters to obtain the highest removal efficiency while the rest of them are concerned with the biosorption mechanism. Combinations of FTIR, SEM-EDX, TEM as well as classical methods such as titrations are extremely useful in determining the main processes on the surfaces of biosorbents. Diverse func-tional groups represented by carboxyl, hydroxyl, sulfate and amino groups play sig-nificant roles in the biosorption process. Solution pH normally has a large impact on biosorption performance. In brief, ion exchange and complexation can be pointed out as the most prevalent mechanisms for the biosorption of most heavy metals. © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Surabaya 60114, Kalijudan 37, Indonesia; Division of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia