CHEMICAL ENGINEERINGTRANSACTIONS VOL. 49, 2016 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors:Enrico Bardone, Marco Bravi, Taj alli Keshavarz Copyright © 2016, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., I SBN978-88-95608-40-2; I SSN 2283-9216 Biosorption of Copper(II) onto Sericin Powder Derived from Cocoons of the Silkworm Bombyx Mori: Kinetics, Equilibrium and Thermodynamics Studies Marcelino L. Gimenes a , Vitor R. Silva b* , Fabiane Hamerski b ,Marcelo Ribani c , Agnes P. Scheer b a Department of Chemical Engineering, State Universty of Maringá, Av. Colombo 5790, Maringa, Brazil b Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal Universty of Paraná, Av. Francisco H.Santo 100, Curitiba, Brazil c Technology Institute of Paraná, St João Américo 500, Curitiba, Brazil The aim of this study was to evaluate the biosorption of copper(II) ions onto sericin powder derived from Bombyx mori silkworm cocoons. Sericin powder, obtained from aqueous extraction (at 120 °C and 20 min extraction) and cold denaturation, was used as biosorbent to remove ions copper from wastewater. Batch adsorption system was used to investigate the kinetic mechanism, equilibrium and thermodynamic of copper(II) biosorption. The kinetics and equilibrium were studied at pH 4.8 at different temperatures (from 20 to 60 °C). The Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models were used for the equilibrium modelling and the kinetics were evaluated by the fitting of convective mass transfer and diffusion models. The maximum sericin uptake of copper(II) was 21.77 ± 0.21 mg g -1 , at 20°C. The kinetic and equilibrium studies showed fast adsorption and interaction limited to the monolayer surface, with pseudo-second order and Langmuir model providing the best fits. Thermodynamic studies indicated that the system is spontaneous, exothermic and that chemical interactions govern the adsorption process. The results revealed that sericin powder has the potential to be used as a biosorbent for the treatment of wastewater containing the ions copper(II). 1. Introduction Many industrial processes in the plating industry involve heavy metals for metal finishing and their effluent must be treated prior to discharge. Copper ions, in particular, are one of the most abundant heavy metal ions in the wastewater of several industries. Excessive intake of copper ions by humans results in its accumulation in the liver and causes gastrointestinal problems. For this reason, it is essential to remove these ions from wastewater with a cost effective treatment (Kurniawan et al., 2006; Ozicemin and Mericboy, 2010). As alternative technology, biosorption has received increasing interest owing to its cost effectiveness, ability to produce less sludge and environmental friendliness, and thus a practical bioprocess for ion metal or dye- containing wastewater needs to be developed (Srinivasan and Viraraghavan, 2010). Biosorption is the process of binding contaminants on the surface of biological material by the chemical affinity of pollutant with the functional groups of biosorbent, as the carboxyl, hydroxyl,amino, carbonyl, phosphate, and sulfonic groups (Podstawczyk et al., 2015). Some studies with biosorbent, as biomass (Gupta et al., 2006; Hu et al., 2015) and proteins (Chen et al. 2012, Nazari et al., 2014) showed potential to remove copper from wastewater. In this context, sericin (water-soluble protein derived from silkworm cocoons) showed high potential to use in development of wastewater treatment (Silva et al., 2015). Sericin is a globular protein, with molecular weight ranging from 10 to 310 kDa, comprising 18 amino acids, most of which have strong polar side groups. Sericin is especially rich in aspartic acid and serine, which represent around 19 % and 32 % of the sericin molar amino acid composition, respectively (Wu et al., 2007). In general, sericin is discharged in silk manufacturing wastewater during the silk degumming step (Capar et al., 2008). The recovered sericin, with its natural structure, can be applied in the development of many types of biofilms and structural materials (Zhang, 2002; Altman et al., 2003). Many studies showed the development of biomaterials applied in membrane separation and adsorption processes (Gimenes et al., 2007;Turbiani et al., 2011,Chen et al., 2012; Silva et al., 2015). DOI: 10.3303/CET1649035 Please cite this article as: Gimenes M.L., Silva V., Hamerski F., Ribani M., Scheer A., 2016, Biosorption of copper(ii) onto sericin powder derived from cocoons of the silkworm bombyx mori: kinetics, equilibrium and thermodynamics studies, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 49, 205-210 DOI: 10.3303/CET1649035 205