Calcined cow leather as a new low-cost biosorbent for copper (II), zinc (II) and nickel (II) ions removal from aqueous solution

ABSTRACT This study’s prime objective was to investigate the efficiency of calcined cow leather as new low-cost biosorbent for heavy metals elimination from aqueous solutions using batch techniques. The final concentrations of Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II) were obtained by ICP-MS spectrometry. The calcined cow leather was characterized by the following techniques FT-IR, XRD, SEM, XRF and BET. Series of biosorption experiments were conducted to determine the effect of biomass, initial ions concentration, pH, temperature and contact time. Therefore, the maximum biosorption capacities (q max ) at the optimum biosorption conditions for Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II) are 9.60 mg/g, 9.30 mg/g and 8.00 mg/g respectively. The Kinetic studies indicate that biosorption well represented by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and well described by the Langmuir model. The thermodynamic settings such as the free energy change (Δ G° ), entropy (Δ H° ) and enthalpy were revealed that the system is spontaneous and endothermic by nature at 298-328 K.  Hence, based on experimental results, the calcined cow leather could be exploited as a potential and affordable biosorbent for heavy metals.