Characterization and Optimization of Heavy Metals Biosorption by Fish Scales
The pollution of water with heavy metals has been a great concern due to their toxic nature and adverse effect. Various techniques were employed to remove heavy metal namely physical, chemical, and biological treatment. Biosorption is one of the biological treatment that has emerged as a new technology for the removal and recovery of metal ions from aqueous solutions which is more environmental friendly. Biosorption using Tilapia fish scale was studied with the intention to remove zinc, plumbum, and ferum ions from synthetic wastewater. The optimum adsorption capacities of fish scale was investigated under several condition namely, pH, biosorbent dosage, initial heavy metals concentration, and contact time while final concentration was obtained by using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass (ICP-MS). The results revealed that 92.3% of zinc, 89.33% of plumbum, and 64.2% of ferum able to be sequestered under best adsorption conditions. The maximum percentage removals were observed at pH 6, 5.5, 4.5 and dosage 0.02 g, 0.001 g, 0.8 g at concentration 10 ppb, 0.3 ppb, 300 ppb for zinc, plumbum, and ferum ions, respectively. Maximum removal achieved at 3 hours contact time for ferum and zinc while 2 hours for plumbum. The results indicate that Tilapia fish scale is a promising method in removing ferum, zinc, and plumbum ions from aqueous solution.