Rabia Rehman^1,*, Umer Shafique², Jamil Anwar¹ and Samina Ghafoor¹

¹Institute of Chemistry, University of the Punjab, Lahore-54590, Pakistan

²Department of Ecological Chemistry, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany

*Corresponding author: Fax: +92 42 99230998; Tel: +92 42 99230463, Ext: 870; E-mail: grinorganic@yahoo.com

Kinetic and isothermal biosorption studies of cobalt, copper and nickel ions using Polyalthia longifolia leaf powder has been carried out in this study on batch scale. Various factors like adsorbent dose, pH, initial concentration of metal ion and agitation time were optimized. Maximum biosorption of Cu(II), Co(II) and Ni(II) occurred at pH 6, 6 and 5, respectively. Isothermal models like Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin were studied and observed to fit well. The maximum removing capacity of Polyalthia longifolia leaves was found to be 1.74, 3.99 and 4.08 mg/g for copper, cobalt and nickel ions, respectively following pseudo-second-order model. So, Polyalthia longifolia leaves found to besuitable for amputation of cobalt, copper and nickel ions in an environmentally benign way.

Biosorption, Polyalthia longifolia, Heavy metals, Isotherms, Kinetics.