Journal of

Background and Aim: Discharge of industrial wastewater containing Pb into the environment can have harmful effects in the live organisms. Therefore, Pb must be removed from polluted water using an effective method before being discharged into the environment. The purpose of the present study was to examine Pb removal using alga Azolla biomass.

Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, removal of Pb(II) was performed using Azolla biomass considering changes in time, pH, adsorbent dose, initial concentration of Pb and mixing speed. Experiments were performed in batch reactor in flasks on Shaker. , Atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used for Pb determination. All experiments were conducted in triplicate and the mean removal percent was reported. Finally, biosorption kinetic and equilibrium isotherms of adsorbent was investigated.

Results: It was found that the higher removal efficiency of Pb occurred in pH 6 and aoptimum dsorbent dose 7 g/L. With increase in the initial concentration of Pb, removal efficincy decreased and with increasing of contact time and mixing speed,efficincy increased. Data also showed that the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo second-order kinetic are compliance.

Conclusion: Azolla biomass is an efficient and low-cost adsorbent for removing of Pb (II) from water and wastewater.