The potential use of rice husk as biosorbent to remove Cu2+, Al3+, Ni2+ and Zn2+ ions from aqueous solutions was investigated under both noncompetitive and competitive conditions. The biosorbent was used in the form of particles with size smaller than 0.5 μm and in the concentration of 500 mg L-1 (dry weight). The experiments were performed using batch adsorption technique for concentrations of 10, 30 and 70 mg L-1 of metal ions at pH 4.0 and 5.0. The chemical speciation of metals in the experimental conditions used in this work was predicted by the software Visual MINTEQ 2.6.
rice husk; biosorption; metals adsorption
