Multicomponent isotherm for biosorption of Zn(II), CO(II) and Cd(II) from ternary mixture onto pretreated dried Aspergillus niger biomass

In the present study, multicomponent competitive biosorption of heavy metal from aqueous solution onto pretreated dried Aspergillus niger in batch system was investigated. The adsorption data were fitted to the multicomponent Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Sips equations. We used the genetic algorithm of biosorption in ternary mixture to evaluate the potential effects of each metal in the removal of other metals. In order to take both mechanisms of the cell-surface binding and intra-particle diffusion into account, an alternative model was investigated by combining the pseudo-second-order kinetics model and the intra-particle diffusion model. A model describing the process of biosorption by a single-stage batch design was developed and verified based on the Temkin isotherm model. Fundamentally, the outlook from these observations of the experiments that the pretreated dried biomass is a suitable absorbent for the removal of significant amounts of the heavy metal from the effluents of industrial wastewater is promising. •The genetic algorithm of heavy metal biosorption in ternary mixture was evaluated.•Multicomponent isotherm data of heavy metal were fitted by different models.•Mathematical model describing single-stage adsorbers was developed.•Kinetics were controlled by the pseudo-second-order rate equation.