Removal of Ni (II) and Cu (II) from their Solutions and Waste Water by Nonliving Biomass of Pseudomonas oleovorans

The nonliving biomass of Pseudomonas oleovorans was used for the removal of Nickel and Copper from their single and binary solutions. The optimum conditions such as pH, initial metal ion concentration, contact time and biomass dose were determined experimentally. qmax and ‘b’ values for Ni(II) were 95.6 mg/g and 0.010 and for Cu(II) 137.5 mg/g and 0.008 respectively. The removal of the metals was studied in binary metal systems also. The developed method was applied for the removal of the metals from the wastewater samples. The investigations on the speciation of the metals revealed that both Ni and Cu exist as hydrated Ni (II) and Cu (II) ions and precipitates of Ni(OH)2 and Cu(OH)2 at different pH ranges.