Research Article Ecofriendly Biosorbents Produced from Cassava Solid Wastes: Sustainable Technology for the Removal of Cd 2+ , Pb 2+ , and Cr total Daniel Schwantes , 1 Affonso Celso Gonçalves Junior , 2 Henrique Alipio Perina, 3 César Ricardo Teixeira Tarley , 4 Douglas Cardoso Dragunski , 5 Elio Conradi Junior , 2 and Juliano Zimmermann 2 1 Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Chile, Avenida Vicuña Mackenna no. 4860, Santiago, Macul, Región Metropolitana, Chile 2 Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná, Rua Universitária, No. 1619, Universitário, Cascavel, State of Paraná, Brazil 3 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Avenida União, No. 500, Toledo, State of Paraná, Brazil 4 Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Rod. Celso Garcia Cid, State of Paraná, 445 Km 380, Campus Universitário, Londrina, State of Paraná, Brazil 5 Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná, Rua da Faculdade, No. 645, Jardim La Salle, Toledo, State of Paraná, Brazil Correspondence should be addressed to Daniel Schwantes; daniel_schwantes@hotmail.com Received 8 October 2021; Revised 5 January 2022; Accepted 9 February 2022; Published 9 March 2022 Academic Editor: Muhammad Raziq Rahimi Kooh Copyright © 2022 Daniel Schwantes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This research is aimed at investigating the possible use of cassava agroindustry solid wastes in manufacturing adsorbents and their use in removing heavy metals Cd 2+ , Pb 2+ , and Cr total from water. Thus, a pilot study was conducted in two main steps: (1) obtaining and characterizing the adsorbents and (2) laboratory studies focused on the evaluation of critical physicochemical parameters on adsorption, such as pH of the solution containing heavy metals, the effect of adsorbent dose, besides kinetics and equilibrium adsorption and desorption studies. Three adsorbents were studied, cassava barks, bagasse, and their mixture. SEM, FTIR, pH PZC , acid digestion, and chemical composition analysis were employed for adsorbent characterization. The pH of the contaminated solution was evaluated within 4.0 to 7.0, while the adsorbent doses varied from 5.0 to 24.0 g L -1 . The adsorption kinetics was evaluated within 5 to 180 minutes and interpreted using pseudofirst- and second-order models. Finally, equilibrium and desorption studies were performed by evaluating adsorbent performance within 5 to 200 mg L -1 of heavy metals, using several nonlinear models for results interpretation. SEM analysis reveals a heterogeneous structure full of cavities. FTIR before and after adsorption reveals gaps related to missing functional groups, suggesting a significant role of alkenes, carboxylic acid, alcohol, anhydride, and ether. pH PZC is found at pH 6.02, 6.04, and 6.26 for adsorbents derived from barks, bagasse, and their mixture. In low concentrations of metals, the higher adsorption capacities were found at pH 7.0 (94.9%) using 16 g L -1 of adsorbent, with the most cost-benefit dose found using 8.0 g L -1 . The removal of metals reaches equilibrium within 5-10 minutes of contact time with pseudosecond-order best adjustments to the observed phenomena. The adsorption of metals by a cassava adsorbent is better adjusted to the Freundlich model, with significant and critical information provided by Sips, Redlich-Peterson, Temkin, Liu, and Khan models. Adsorption/desorption studies indicate that cassava adsorbent performs, on average, -10% of the adsorption of metals compared to activated carbon. Nevertheless, factors such as low cost and availability favor the use of such natural materials. 1. Introduction In the last decade, the increasing industrialization and urban- ization have raised the number of pollutants disposed of in the environment, especially water bodies [1]. In this sense, among the many contaminants that affect aquatic environments and human health, the pollution from organic or inorganic com- pounds, such as toxic metals and metalloids (Cd, Pb, Cr, As, Hindawi Adsorption Science & Technology Volume 2022, Article ID 5935712, 18 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5935712