Name: JUSAYAN, REX ANGELO M.

Student Number: 2014-81828

English 10 WFW4
Biosorption
With rapid urbanization and industrialization, disposal of aqueous effluents into the environment
has increased. Many of these effluents contain high level of toxic pollutants such heavy metals which are
mainly produced by anthropogenic activities such as smelting, battery and steel manufacturing, mining, and
metal processing (Verma and Dwivedi, 2013). The pollution caused by the release of these heavy metals
into the aquatic system has become one of the major problems over the last few decades. In fact, some
inland water bodies in Europe and America were closed for fishing due to heavy metal contamination (Vieira
and Volesky, 2000). In Northern Brazil, fishes from fresh waters were killed with mercury as a result of illegal
gold extraction (Vieira and Volesky 2000). The same thing also happened here in the Philippines- fishes
were killed due to the contamination of the Taft River in Samar with lead, copper, iron, cadmium, and zinc
(Social Assessment of the Bagacay Mine, n.d.; Slideshare, 2012). Heavy metals can be dangerous not only
to fishes but also to humans health, especially when acquired in significantly high amount. Cadmium can
cause Pneumoconiosis and kidney failure, chromium can cause stomach cancer, copper can damage the
cognitive function of humans brain, lead can trigger chronic renal failure and neurodegenerative disorders,
gold can bring about gastro-intestinal bleeding, and nickel can initiate systemic toxicity (Jarup, 2003).
Due to the dreadful effects brought about by heavy metal contamination, substantial attention has
been given to the discovery of possible methods for heavy metal removal from aquatic systems. Reverse
osmosis, electrochemical methods, chemical precipitation, ion exchange, flotation, and membrane
processes are some of the techniques that were discovered (Park et al., 2010). Unfortunately, these
techniques have some limitations. They cannot completely remove the metals. They also require high
energy and reagents and they generate waste products such as toxic sludge which require disposal. In
addition, these methods are restricted when used for the decontamination of marine systems with heavy

metals in a low concentration range (Vieira and Volesky, 2000). As a result of these inadequacies and
inefficiencies, researchers have sought alternative ways of removing toxic heavy metals from aquatic
systems.
It was in the 1990s when the researchers, in the field of environmental biotechnology, discovered a
new and efficient method for heavy metal removal- biosorption. Biosorption is defined as the capability of
biological materials to accumulate heavy metals from aquatic systems through metabolically physiochemical
pathways of uptake (Ahalya et al., 2003). The mechanism of biosorption is complex. It mainly works through
ion exchange, chelation, adsorption by physical forces, and entrapment of metals in spaces of the structural
polysaccharide network and in interfibrilliar and intrafibrilliar capillaries (Ahalya et al., 2003). The major
advantages of this technology over the conventional ones include not only its affordability and availability but
also its high efficiency- the minimization of chemical and biological sludges, the removal of heavy metals at
low concentrations, and the recovery of metal following adsorption (Volesky, 2007).
In the process of biosorption, a biological material is regarded as the biosorbent. Biosorbents,
which contain metal-sequestering properties, can come from industrial wastes, organisms that are easily
available in large amounts in nature, and organisms of quick growth (Vieira and Volesky 2000). They can be
classified into two, the living organisms and the non-living biological materials. Living organisms include
bacteria such as the gram-negative, gram-positive and cyanobacterias; fungi such as molds, mushrooms
and yeasts; and algae such as the seaweeds, micro-algae and macro-algae (Park et al., 2010). On the other
hand, non-living biological materials include industrial wastes such as waste sludge and mill residues;
agricultural wastes such as the fruit and vegetable derivatives; and natural residues such as saw dust, tree
barks, and weeds (Park et al., 2010)..
Seaweeds offer advantages for biosorption mainly because of their structure- the presence of
carboxyls and sulphates in their polysaccharides (Ahalya et al., 2003). In fact, some species of seaweed
evaluated by different researchers have indicated impressive biosorption of metals (Yand and Voleky, 1999;

Volesky et al., 1999; Volesky and Holan, 19995; Figueira et al., 2000). Aderhold et al. (1996) studied the
ability of three species of seaweed namely Ecklonia maxima, Lessonia flavicans and Durvillea potatorum
and found out that they can remove copper, nickel, zinc, lead and cadmium in aqueous solution. Sargassum
seaweed was also confirmed by Volesky et al. (1999) to remove cadmium and copper from aquatic systems.
The research team stated that the alginate in the cell wall is the one responsible for the metal sorption of the
seaweed.
It has also been demonstrated by Vieira and Volesky (2000) that fungi can be used as biosorbents
for heavy metals since they are composed of a wide range of chemical groups that can attract and
sequester the metals in biomass. Their cell walls are composed of structural polysaccharides, proteins and
lipids that offer metal-binding functional groups (Ahalya et al., 2003). In the study of Stofko et al. (2006), dry
biomass of three fungi species namely Agaricus campester, Amanita muscaria and Trametes g ibbosa were
tested for their biosorption capabilities and results revealed that these fungi can remove copper, aluminum
and antimony from aqueous solutions.
According to Parungao et al. (2007), the cell surface of bacteria carries a net negative charge due
to the presence of carboxyl, amine, hydroxyl, phosphate and sulfhydryl groups and because of this property
bacteria can attract and adsorb significant quantities of positively charged heavy metals. And so, bacteria
can also be used as biosorbent. In fact, according to the study conducted by Leung et al. (2001) entitled
Biosorption of heavy metals by bacteria isolated from activated sludge, both gram-positive (Bacillus)
and gram-negative (Pseudomonas) bacteria have the capacity to remove copper, nickel and lead.
Waste materials, such as agricultural wastes, natural wastes, and the by-products from large-scale
industrial operations, were also given extensive attention. Dried activated waste sludge from a sewage
treatment plant can remove cadmium, copper and zinc according to Hammaini et al. (2003), olive mill
residues can remove copper according to Pagnanelli et al. (2002), and biosolids can remove zinc according
to Aderhold et al. (1996). Agricultural wastes such as the Ananas comosus peel, Parkia speciosa pods
and Psidium guajava peel, as investigated by Foo et al. (2011), can adsorb cadmium. Also, natural wastes

such as bark from Eucalyptus globulus Labill and Pinus radiate have been found out to accumulate copper
and zinc (Arifudin and Muliyana, 2011).
Feasibility studies have established that biosorptive processes using non-living biomass are more
effective than the biosorptive processes that use living microorganisms. This is due to the fact that living
microorganisms require nutrient supply and complicated bioreactor systems (Park et al., 2010). In addition
to that, due to the toxicity of the pollutants being extracted and other unsuitable environmental factors such
as the temperature and the acidity of the system being treated, maintenance of a healthy population of
microorganisms becomes difficult (Park et al., 2010). For these reasons, some prefer the use of non-living
biomass as biosorbents. However, there are a lot of attributes of living microorganisms which remain
unexploited and these attributes are all valuable of extra attention since they may be of great use for specific
applications (Park et al., 2010). In fact, A. Malik mentioned that when some non-living biosorptive metal
removal is not possible, growing metal resistant cells can be applied to water systems. These cells can
ensure better removal due to a combination of bioprecipitation, biosorption, and continuous uptake of metals
after physical adsorption (Malik, 2004).
With the economic advantages and the wide knowledge accumulated about the biosorption
technology, some new biosorbents are currently promoted for commercial exploitation (Vieira and Volesky,
2000). However, there are no limits to expanding our knowledge about the science of biosorption. We still
need to acquire deeper understanding and provide accurate explanations of the phenomenon in order to
utilize this technology to its maximum efficiency. A lot of scientific studies are presently on the move and
contributions to welfare are welcome in this world which grows each second- a world which needs to be in
equilibrium with so much progress (Vieira and Volesky, 2000).

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