Among a variety of microbial materials employed for biosorption, algae have added advantages of non-toxic and autotrophic nature. In this study, biosorption of Hg(II) was studied with red algal biomass of Porphyridium cruentum. The parameters affecting biosorption such as dosage of biosorbent, pH, contact time, initial metal concentration, temperature and effect of foreign metal cations in binary system were evaluated. Kinetic data were described with the help of pseudofirst-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and DubininRadushkevich isotherm models were applied to adsorption equilibrium data. According to the results, the maximum removal capacity (q max ) was 2.62 mg/g observed at pH 7 with 0.25 g/L of biosorbent dosage for Hg(II) solution containing 10 mg/L of metal ions. The Langmuir isotherm model fits best to the adsorption data while the kinetic data followed the pseudo-second-order model. Thermodynamics studies showed that the biosorption process of Hg(II) on P. cruentum was exothermic in nature.ARTICLE HISTORY
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.