Surface reaction of Bacillus cereus biomass and its biosorption for lead and copper ions

In this study, the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analytical technique identified the surface chemical functional groups of Bacillus cereus biomass. B. Cereus cells mainly contained carboxyl, hydroxyl, phosphate, amino, and amide functional groups. In order to explain the surface acid-base properties of aqueous B. Cereus biomass, the potentiometric titration was conducted . The computer program FITEQL 4.0 was used to perform the model calculations. The optimization results indicated that three sites-three pKas model, which assumed the cell surface to have three distinct types of surface organic functional groups based on IR analysis results, simulated the experimental results very well. Moreover, batch adsorption experiments were performed to investigate biosorption behavior of Cu (Ⅱ) and Pb (Ⅱ) ions onto the biomass. Obviously, the adsorption equilibrium data for the two ions were reasonably described by typical Langmuir isotherm.