Corn cob and corn silk as biosorbent for metal ions removal from aqueous solution: comparative analysis

Abstract

In this work, corn cob and corn silk were used as biosorbent for removal of Pb2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+ ions from aqueous solutions. Adsorption experiments were performed in batch mode. Corn cob and corn silk were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The maximum biosorption capacities of corn cob was found to be 0.049, 0.053 and 0.021 mmol L-1 for Pb2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+ ions, respectively. At the other hand, higher values of maximum biosorption capacities: 0.40, 0.22 and 0.19 mmol L-1 for Pb2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+ ions, respectively, indicates that corn silk has better adsorption characteristics in comparison to corn cob.