Int. J. Environment and Pollution, Vol. 27, Nos. 1/2/3, 2006 179 Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Biosorptive separation of ‘labile’ fractions of copper and lead from river sediments and evaluation by differential pulse, anodic stripping voltammetry Bhim Bali Prasad*, Rachana Singh and Dhana Lakshmi Analytical Division, Department of Chemistry, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India E-mail: prasadbb_2000@yahoo.com *Corresponding author Abstract: The ‘labile’ copper and lead metal contents of contaminated sediments were extracted in different chemical solutions and then subjected for biosorptive separations. The sorbents called ‘AlgaSORB-sp’ and ‘AlgaSORB-ch’ were derived from two different algae, viz., Spirogyra and Chlorella, respectively . The metal detection was made by differential pulse, anodic stripping voltammetry. The retention of ‘labile’ species onto biosorbents in dynamic mode at optimised conditions of pH 6.9 and flow rate 1.0 mL/min in AlgaSORB-sp (copper ion) and AlgaSORB-ch (lead ion) led metal fractionations into labile and strongly complexed forms, in realistic terms. Keywords: biosorbent; AlgaSORB; column chromatography; trace metals; anodic stripping voltammetry. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Prasad, B.B., Singh, R. and Lakshmi, D. (2006) ‘Biosorptive separation of ‘labile’ fractions of copper and lead from river sediments and evaluation by differential pulse, anodic stripping voltammetry’, Int. J. Environment and Pollution, Vol. 27, Nos. 1/2/3, pp.179–194. Biographical notes: Bhim Bali Prasad is currently a faculty member at the Banaras Hindu University, India where he has mentored 12 PhD students and published over 50 research papers in several reputed international and national journals. He received his BSc Degree in Chemistry in 1972 and MSc Degree in 1974 from Banaras Hindu University, India. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Chemistry, faculty of Science, BHU, India with Dr. Lal Mohan Mukherjee. He is a recipient of several national awards for his research contribution in analytical chemistry. He also went to Ranbaxy Ltd., India for about one-and-half year and elaborated a protocol for pharmaceutical analysis, interfaced with several sophisticated instruments. His research interests include environmental chemistry, chromatography, electroanalysis, and detection principles for chemical analysis and development of biomimetic chemical sensor using molecularly imprinted polymers for clinical, pharmaceutical and biological analyses. Rachana Singh is currently working as a Lecturer at Amity School of Biotechology, India. She received her BSc and MSc Degrees from Banaras Hindu University, India. She obtained her PhD from BHU with Dr. Bhim Bali Prasad. Her thesis dealt with the use of AlgaSORBs as sorbent detector