Use of residues from Eucalyptus Globulus as biosorbents for cadmium removal

The present work studied the removal of cadmium from aqueous solutions by a series of batch sorption experiments using Eucalyptus Globulus bark and seeds as biosorbents. Both biosorbents showed good results in cadmium removal. The best results were obtained when working with a particle size < 75 μm, initial pH solution between 7.5 and 8.0, a mass-to-volume ratio of 18 and 12 g L-1 for the bark and seeds respectively. The Ho and McKay model explained well the biosorption kinetic results for both biosorbents. It was found that cadmium sorption on seeds was faster than that obtained on bark, with maximum cadmium capacity of 8.54 and 5.62 mg L-1 for the seeds ant bark respectively which indicates that the seeds presented better results. The experimental equilibrium data could be fitted well with both the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models.