ABSTRACT:
Heavy metals are ubiquitous and persistent environmental pollutants that are introduced into environment via industrial operations. Copper affect environment as well as humans and animals when in excess concentration. Removal of copper from environment can be performed by physical, chemical and biological methods. Physical and chemical methods are the traditional approaches for treatment of copper in environment. Disadvantages in conventional treatment have led to the introduction of biological treatments for removal of the heavy metals. The search for alternative and innovative treatment techniques has focused on the biosorption activity of biological substances including living cells as well as certain plants. In this study, biosorption of copper by Oryza sativa and Aspergillus oryzae was studied. Biosorption with these biological substrates are cost effective and highly efficient. The experiment deals with a comparison of biosorption of copper in terms of optimum metal concentration, biomass concentration, rate of remediation and effect of pH on the process of biosorption using Oryza sativa and Aspergillus oryzae. Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (FAAS) was used to quantify metals in the synthetic effluents. Initial and final metal concentrations were estimated to establish the optimum values of the parameters.