Journal of Hazardous Materials 165 (2009) 469–474 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Hazardous Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhazmat Equilibrium and kinetic studies of copper(II) removal by three species of dead fungal biomasses Xiaona Li a , Qiaoyu Xu a , Guomin Han a , Wenqing Zhu a , Zhanhui Chen a , Xingbing He b , Xingjun Tian a,∗ a School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China b School of Resources and Planning Sciences, Jishou University, Zhangjiajie 416000, China article info Article history: Received 18 March 2008 Received in revised form 28 September 2008 Accepted 6 October 2008 Available online 14 October 2008 Keywords: Biosorption Copper Dead fungal biomass Adsorption isotherm Kinetics abstract The batch experiments were conducted to study the copper(II) removal by formaldehyde inactivated Cladosporium cladosporioides, Gliomastix murorum and Bjerkandera sp., at conditions of agitation speed of 150 rpm, temperature of 25 ◦ C, biosorbent dose of 2 g l -1 and contact time of 12 h. It was found that, for each biomass, the optimum pH was 6.0 and the equilibrium establishing time was about 2h. Without acid or alkali treatment for improving adsorption properties, the experimental maximum copper(II) biosorptions were relatively high: 7.74 mg g -1 for C. cladosporioides, 9.01 mg g -1 for G. murorum, and 12.08 mg g -1 for Bjerkandera sp.. The biosorption data of all the dead fungal biomasses were quite fitted to Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo second-order kinetic model; first-order Lagergren kinetic model gave good adjustment to the data of Bjerkandera sp. but did not fit the data of C. cladosporioides and G. murorum very well. These fungal biomasses exhibited relatively high capacity for the removal of copper(II) from aqueous solutions. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Environmental contamination by hazardous heavy metals (like copper, lead, zinc and cadmium) has become one serious envi- ronmental problem of worldwide concern [1]. There is no time to delay the removal of heavy metals from effluents. Since the 1990s, heavy metal removal by biomaterials has become more and more acceptable [2]. Fungal biomasses are considered to be good biosor- bents for heavy metals because of their advantages such as low cost, environmental friendliness, regeneration, performing sim- plicity and short cycle [1–3]. Many fungi have been studied on their capacities for heavy metal biosorption, for example, Pleuro- tus pulmonarius, Schizophyllum commune [4], Auricularia polytricha [5], Phanerochaete chrysosporium [6], Aspergillus spp. [7–9], Peni- cillium spp. [10,11], Rhizopus arrhizus [10,12,13] and Saccharomyces spp. [14,15]. Researchers have suggested that the two main mechanisms of heavy metal biosorption are: (1) ion exchange reacting with the active chemical groups such as hydroxyl, carbonyl, carboxyl, sulfhydryl, sulfonate, thioether, amine, imine and phosphonate [16–18]; (2) physicochemical inorganic interactions directed by adsorption phenomena [16]. It is noticeable that the former is a ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 25 8368 6787; fax: +86 25 8368 6787. E-mail address: tianxj@nju.edu.cn (X. Tian). critical mechanism [16] for removal of most of the heavy metals, but never for precious metals such as gold and silver [19]. These mechanisms determine the significance of control over the experi- mental parameters. Several crucial parameters can influence heavy metal biosorption, such as pH, pretreating methods, fungal species, metal species, contact time and initial metal concentration [20,21]. These parameters which provide information about effectiveness of metal-biosorbent system can be obtained from batch experiments. The literatures [9,16,18] indicate that heavy metal biosorption by fungal biomass follows adsorption isotherm and kinetic equa- tions. Adsorption isotherm models such as Langmuir [4], Freundlich [2], Temkin [23], Redlich–Peterson [24], and kinetic models such as first-order Lagergren [25] and pseudo second-order [26] have been used to simulate heavy metal biosorption processes. For this biosorption study, filamentous fungi Cladosporium cla- dosporioides, Gliomastix murorum and Bjerkandera species were selected. The highly porous and meshes structure of the mycelia of filamentous fungi might provide ready access and large sur- face area for biosorption of metals [15]. Some different strains of melanin-producing C. cladosporioides have been confirmed as good biosorbents for removal of many heavy metals [19,27,28] including precious metals gold and silver [19]. In this work, a spe- cial strain of C. cladosporioides was isolated from an underground river in a gold mine. White-rot fungus Bjerkandera sp. has been well researched on its dye-decolorizing property and peroxidase [29,30]. Fewer investigations on filamentous fungus G. murorum 0304-3894/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2008.10.013