Biosorption of Cu by Thiobacillus ferrooxidans

Current technologies for removal and recovery of both toxic and industrial interest metals usually produce wastes with high concentrations of those substances. They are an important source of environmental pollution, specially when they contain heavy metals. This is one of the most important environmental problems, and of the most difficult to solve. So far, there have been a number of studies considering the possibility of removing and recovering heavy metals from diluted solutions. These are due, principally, because of the commercial value of some metals as well as the environmental impact caused by them. The traditional methods for removing have several disadvantages when metals are present in concentrations lower than 100 mg/l. Biosorption, which uses biological materials as adsorbents, has been considered as an alternative method. In this work, several variables that affect the capacity for copper biosorption by T. ferrooxidans have been studied. Particularly, the effect of pH, chemical pretreatment, biomass concentration and temperature have been considered. Results indicate that a capacity as high as 119 mg of Cu/g of dry biomass can be obtained at a temperature of 25 °C.