Comparison of Algae Lead Absorption Capacity

Lead is one of the most toxic heavy metals and is highly cosnumed in industry with highly negative effects on living organisms even in very small amounts. Air pollution with lead causes a diversity of diseases in humans and organisms. In aquatic environments lead pollution damages the functioning of phytoplanktons as one of the important sources of oxygen production and caused imbalance in the global aquatic organisms. Among absorbents, algae are of special importance, as lead gets accumulated in algae easily leading to the high absorption coefficient of these absorbents. In this study, lead absoption by algae was investigated. The research variables included absorbent dose, pH, temperature, optimum absorption time, and maximum absorption. Classical adsorption isotherm models, including Langmuir and Freundlich and two adsorption kinetics of pseudo-first-order model (Lagrgn) and pseudo-second-order model (Ho) were also examined. The results showed that the high adsorption rate of lead was due to algae, especially brown algae. However, the isotherm and kinetic variables and models of lead absorption in algae did not follow a distinguishable order. It must be noted that for the operation of the heavy metal adsorption of lead in real environments using algae, the special conditions of the place, time, temperature, and concentration of metal should be considered.