engleski

Waste utilization from food production and processing as biosorbent for treatment of waters polluted with heavy metals

Increased agricultural production, food production and processing lead to the large amounts of organic solid wastes and residues which require adequate disposal. Instead, the organic solid wastes should be evaluated in terms of sustainability. Recently, there is a growing interest in designing the low-cost, non-hazardous and easily accessible materials as sorbents in removal of various harmful substances from wastewater. Finding proper low-cost sorbent with good sorption properties is quite challenging. In this research the several solid organic wastes such as residues of sea urchin (Paracentrotus lividus), sour cherry pits (Prunus cerasus), cherry pits (Prunus avium), olive pits (Olea europaea) and olive pomace pellets were collected from local food producers in order to estimate their sorption efficiency in lead and zinc removal from aqueous solutions. The experiments were performed by batch method in laboratory shaker at 250 rpm, and solid/liquid ratio of 1/100 for 24 hours at ambient temperature. According to the results obtained, the better removal of lead than zinc has been achieved for all tested biosorbents. The sorption efficiency for lead is in the range ≈ 13 – 36 % and follows olive pomace pellets < sea urchin < cherry pits < olive pits < sour cherry pits, while for zinc is in the range ≈ 17 – 38 % and follows olive pits < olive pomace pellets < sour cherry pits < cherry pits < sea urchin. The further investigation should be focused on the kinetic study to provide insight into the sorption mechanism. These preliminary results demonstrate the solid waste and residues from food production and processing as potential biosorbents for lead and zinc, but in order to increase efficiency it is necessary to perform multistep sorption or biosorbents surface modification.

organic solid waste ; biosorbents ; sustainability ; heavy metals polluted waters

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