Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233

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Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry

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Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the biosorption of basic dyes from binary component
systems and the high order derivative spectrophotometric method for
simultaneous analysis of Brilliant green and Methylene blue
Mehrorang Ghaedi a,*, Shaaker Hajati b,**, Behnaz Barazesh a, Farahnaz Karimi a, Gholamreza Ghezelbash c
a
Chemistry Department, Yasouj University, Yasouj 75918-74831, Iran
b
Department of Physics, Yasouj University, Yasouj 75918-74831, Iran
c
Biology Department, Faculty of Science, University of Isfahan, Isfahan 81746-73441, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: In this work, biosorption of Brilliant green (BG) and Methylene blue (MB) dyes in binary mixture onto
Received 20 June 2012 Saccharomyces cerevisiae were studied. pH at which the biosorption capacity of biomass is maximum was
Accepted 4 August 2012 found to be 6 which is close to the pH of natural aqueous solutions. This is a big advantage of S. cerevisiae
Available online 10 August 2012
which makes it applicable for the technology of dye removal from natural aqueous dye solutions. Note
that the time for the applied biosorption process for the dye removal is considerably short (about 5 min)
Keywords: which is a big improvement for the adsorption processes. This proves that the S. cerevisiae is a promising
Biosorption
adsorbent. The BG and MB dyes were simultaneously analyzed using the fifth and fourth order derivative
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
spectrophotometric method, respectively. Several isotherm models were applied to experimental data
Biomass
Methylene blue (MB) and the isotherm constants were calculated for BG and MB dyes. Among the applied models, Freundlich
Brilliant green (BG) isotherm model showed best fit to the biosorption equilibrium data.
Binary mixture ß 2012 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All
Derivative spectrophotometry rights reserved.

1. Introduction effective, versatile and commercially applicable adsorbent for this

Synthetic dyes are widely used in textile, leather, paper, pulp,
plastic and printing industries. There are more than 100,000
commercial dyes with a rough estimated production of 7  105–
1  106 tons annually worldwide. It is estimated that 10–20% of the
dyes are lost during the manufacturing and dyeing process which
results large amounts of dye-containing wastewater [1–4]. Most of
the dyes are stable to light, heat and many oxidizing agents, and
more difficult to be biodegraded. Due to the increasing enforce-
ment legislations, effluents containing dyes require proper
treatment prior to discharge because of their high COD, SS and
potential toxic breakdown products, as well as for color which may
pose aesthetic problem [5]. Therefore, the removal of both
inorganic and organic pollutants from contaminated water is a
big challenge and thus it is necessary to develop efficient methods
for this purpose. One of the most promising and extensively used
methods is adsorption. It is well known that activated carbon is an
* Corresponding author at: Chemistry Department, Yasouj University, Yasouj
75918-74831, Iran. Tel.: +98 741 2223048; fax: +98 741 2223048.
** Corresponding author at: Department of Physics, Yasouj University, Yasouj
75918-74831, Iran. Tel.: +98 741 2223048; fax: +98 741 2223048.
E-mail addresses: m_ghaedi@mail.yu.ac.ir, ghaedims@yahoo.com (M. Ghaedi),
Hajati@mail.yu.ac.ir (S. Hajati).
process [6,7]. However, the high cost of activated carbon and 10–
15% loss during regeneration restrict its application. Recent
research has focused on the development of low-cost, renewable,
locally available and efficient alternative adsorbents, including
clay materials, agricultural waste materials, industrial waste or
byproducts, bacteria, fungi, algae, polysaccharide materials, etc.
[8–13].
Biosorption can be used for the passive uptake of organic and
inorganic species including metals, dyes and odor causing
substances by inactive biological materials or by materials derived
from biological sources [14,15]. There are many advantages for
biosorption. For instance, it is a cost-effective and environmental
friendly adsorption method. Although considerable information is
available on biosorption of mono-component dye system by
various biosorbents, most industrial effluents contain a mixture of
several dyes and little attention has been given to biosorption of
multi-component dye systems. Many problems are to be solved for
multi-component biosorption. The critical one is to evaluate the
interactions and competitions between biosorbates and biosor-
bents [16]. Therefore, the nature of mechanism and the extent of
competition have been inadequately understood. The prediction
and evaluation of multi-component biosorption equilibrium are
still most challenging. For multi-component dye systems, an
important and often encountered problem is to analyze the dyes

1226-086X/$ – see front matter ß 2012 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2012.08.006
228 M. Ghaedi et al. / Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233
simultaneously in mixtures [17]. Chromatographic techniques,
capillary electrophoresis, spectrometry and electrochemistry are
often used to perform dyes analysis. Spectrophotometric methods
are more economic and simpler, compared to methods such as
chromatography and electrophoresis, which have several potential
drawbacks, such as the need for complex sample pre-treatments,
the usage of toxic solvents, and the resulting waste products.
Because of the severe overlapped zero-order absorption
spectra, the use of traditional spectrophotometric techniques is
difficult without any peak separation steps. Derivative spectro-
photometry, which is based on the analysis of derivative spectra, is
a very useful analytical technique to resolve binary and ternary
solutions with overlapping.
In this paper, we use Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the
biosorption of BG and MB dyes in single and binary mixture in
addition to the simultaneous analysis of the dyes using derivative
method. Compared to other biosorbents [18], the time for
biosorption process for the dye removal by using S. cerevisiae is
considerably short (about 5 min) which is a big advantage of it.
Several isotherm models were applied to experimental data and
the isotherm constants were calculated for BG and MB dyes.
Among the applied models, Freundlich isotherm model were
shown to be in good agreement to the biosorption equilibrium
data.
2. Experimental
2.1. Instruments and reagents
All chemicals including NaOH, HCl and KCl with the highest
purity available were purchased from Merk, Dermasdat, Germany.
Dye solutions were prepared by dissolving their appropriate
amount in double distilled water. The test solutions were prepared
by diluting stock solution to the desired concentrations. The pH
was adjusted and measured using pH/Ion meter model-686. The
absorbance spectra for BG and MB were taken in a wide range of
wavelength (l) from 300 nm to 750 nm, using Jasco UV-Visible
spectrophotometer model V-570 with a fixed slit width of 2 nm
and scan speed of 1000 nm/min.
2.2. Measurements of dye biosorption
All experiments were carried out using 0.01 and 0.035 g, of S.
cerevisiae biomass in 50 ml beakers in an IKA magnetic stirrer
operating at 200 rpm to elucidate the optimum conditions (pH,
contact time and initial dye concentration). Working temperature
was chosen at room temperature. The BG and MB biosorption
capacities of adsorbent were determined at certain time intervals
(1–5 min) at room temperature. The effect of pH on biosorption
was studied by adjusting pH of 18 mg/L sample solution in the
range of 1 to 8 in single dye solution. For single dye solution, the
concentrations were determined by measuring the maximum
absorbance for the BG and MB which occurs at 624 and 664 nm,
respectively. The amount of each dye was analyzed via the
corresponding calibration curves at the mentioned wavelength. In
binary solutions, the fourth and the fifth order derivative of the
absorbance spectra were used to find the optimal wavelength for
each dye at which the impact of the other component was
minimized. The optimal wavelengths were found to be 701 and
588.2 nm for BG and MB, respectively. The amount of BG or MB
adsorbed at equilibrium, qe (mg/g) was calculated as:
VðC 0  C e Þ
qe ¼
M
where C0 is the initial dye concentration in the solution (mg/L); Ce
is the residual dye concentration at equilibrium (mg/L); V is the
volume of the solution (L); and M is the weight of the adsorbent
used (g).
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Material
The structures of the basic dyes were presented in Fig. S1 (see
the supplementary data) S. cerevisiae used for the biosorption tests
were collected from a lab-scale SBR fed with glucose as the sole
carbon source. To remove the surface soluble ions, the yeast was
washed three times with distilled water. Then, S. cerevisiae were
dried at 55 8C for 2 h to inactivate the organisms.
3.2. Preparation of the dye solution
The stock solutions of BG and MB dyes were prepared with 1.0–
20 g/L concentration. The experimental solutions were prepared
by diluting the stock solution with distilled water when necessary.
The test solutions containing desired combinations of BG and MB
were prepared by diluting solutions of BG and MB and mixing them
in the test medium. The initial pH of binary solution was adjusted
to the required value by concentrated H2SO4 or NaOH solutions
before mixing with adsorbent.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. The simultaneous analysis in binary solutions
Fig. 1 shows the addition of absorbance spectra of single
solutions of BG and MB (with a concentration of 8 mg/L for each
dye) which is not in agreement with the absorbance spectra of
binary solution made by 8 mg/L of each dye. This shows that the
Beer–Lambert rule does not apply which might be due to the
interaction of the components.
Therefore, the derivatives of the spectra were used (e.g. see
Fig. 2 for the first order derivatives). However, differentiation
procedure can often produce a high level of noise particularly at
higher order derivative which make large errors in quantification.
To overcome this limitation, the spectra were processed by
Savitzky–Golay smoothing [19] after each step of differentiation.
The second order derivative of a given spectrum was made and
smoothed. Next, the spectra were differentiated to make the third
order derivatives (see Fig. 3). As shown, the derivative of the
(1)
Fig. 1. Zero order absorption spectra of BG and MB in single and binary solutions
(initial dye concentration of 8 mg/L for each dye).
 M. Ghaedi et al. / Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233 229

Fig. 2. First order derivative spectra of BG and MB in single and binary solutions
(initial dye concentration of 8 mg/L for each dye).
smoothed one is much better than that of unprocessed in the sense
of signal to noise level. This trend (i.e. the sequence of smoothing
and differentiation) was continued to reach the fifth order
derivative of the spectra. Now, for quantifying the BG and MB
concentration in a given binary solution, it is needed to make a
calibration curve at a given wavelength. To this end, to determine
the concentration of BG, the first order derivative spectra of BG and
MB in the binary solution were used. Moreover, the first order
derivative spectrum of the individual MB in single solution was
made. Then the wavelengths at which the first order derivative
spectra of MB are zero were found. Thus the values of the first order
derivative spectra of the binary solution at this wavelength would
correspond to the BG. Accordingly, at any of the chosen
wavelength, the values of the first order derivatives of the binary
solution with different concentration of BG were determined. To
make a calibration curve, we plotted these values versus the
concentration of BG, to predict its value. However, this calibration
curve did not satisfy the predictivity. Therefore, this procedure was
continued until the predictivity is satisfied which occurs at fifth
and fourth order derivative for BG and MB, respectively. Note that,
the chosen wavelength for BG and MB were 701 nm (see Fig. 4) and
588.2 nm (see Fig. 5), respectively.
The accuracy of the quantification by using the fifth and fourth
order derivative was examined by evaluating recovery studies. The
Fig. 4. Fifth order derivative spectra of BG and MB in single and binary solutions
(initial dye concentration of 8 mg/L).
fifth and fourth order derivative spectra of the binary solution of
BG and MB containing different concentration of each dye were
recorded and also shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. The
recoveries (%) and errors (%) were calculated using the following
equations:
Cm
Recovery ð%Þ ¼  100 (2)
Ct
Cm  Ct
Error ð%Þ ¼  100 (3)
Ct
where Ct and Cm are the theoretical and experimental concentra-
tion, respectively. Table S1 (see the supplementary data)
represents the recoveries and errors for the quantification of the
BG and MB dyes in binary solutions [20,21]. As seen from Table S1
(see the supplementary data), the recovery values for BG and MB
were in the range of 98–99.82% and 97.28–99.5%, respectively. The
error values for BG and MB were in the range of 11.66% to 10% and
6.66% to 10%, respectively. As mentioned above, this method was
accurately predictive.

Fig. 3. Third order absorption spectra of BG and MB in binary solutions with and Fig. 5. Fourth order derivative spectra of BG and MB in single and binary solutions
without smoothing (initial dye concentration of 8 mg/L for each dye). (initial dye concentration of 8 mg/L).
230 M. Ghaedi et al. / Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233
Fig. 6. Fifth order derivative spectra of BG and MB in binary sloution.
4.2. The effect of the initial dye concentration on the biosorption of BG
and MB in binary mixtures
In this part of the study, the effect of initial dye concentration on
the biosorption of BG and MB in binary mixture onto S. cerevisiae
biomass was investigated over a wide range of concentration of
both dyes. The concentration of any of dyes changed from 1 to
18 mg/L at optimized pH and temperature. The individual and total
adsorbed dye amounts at equilibrium are denoted by qeq,i (mg/g)
and qeq,total, respectively. Their values are given in Table S2 (see the
supplementary data) for the biosorption of BG dye and in Table S3
(see the supplementary data) for the biosorption of MB dye in
single solution and binary mixture, respectively [22].
In the application of biosorption for purification of wastewater,
the solution will normally be a mixture of many compounds rather
than a single one [23–25]. The interactions of these compounds
may mutually enhance or inhibit biosorption capacity. As seen
from Tables S2 and S3 (see the supplementary data), the individual
and total adsorbed dye amounts and biosorption yields at
equilibrium change with the initial dyes concentration in mixtures.
For the biosorption of BG from single solution, the uptake
capacities increased from 7.37 to 65.13 (mg/g), respectively, with
increasing the initial BG concentration from 1 to 10 (mg/L). In the
same concentration range and in the presence of 3 mg/L initial MB,
the uptake capacity of S. cerevisiae biomass found to be 6.37–
34.26 mg/g. As a result, dye uptake capacity of S. cerevisiae biomass
was reduced in the presence of other dye. The similar trend was
also observed for the biosorption of the other BG and MB
Fig. 7. Fourth order derivative spectra of BG and MB in binary sloution.
Fig. 8. Effect of contact time on BG and MB removal at 0.03 g of Saccharomyces
cerevisiae biomass in 50 mL at pH 6, at room temperature and BG and MB
concentration 8 of each dye.
combinations onto S. cerevisiae biomass. The comparison of the
biosorption yields of the single and binary component systems
shows lower individual biosorption yields of dyes in binary
component system than those in single component system. At
lower dye concentrations, all dye molecules present in solution
could interact with the binding sites. Thus the biosorption yields
(%) are higher than those at higher initial BG and MB concentra-
tions. At higher dye concentrations, lower biosorption yield is due
to the saturation of biosorption sites. The high uptake values at the
high initial dye concentrations are due to a higher initial
concentration providing an important driving force to overcome
all mass transfer resistances of dye between the aqueous and solid
phases [20,26]. The presence of the other dye develops a
competition for these biosorption sites on the surface and some
sites are occupied by the second component, especially at
relatively high concentration of them (see Figs. S2 and S3 in the
supplementary data). A comparison of the experimental and
modeled isotherm for BG and MB biosorption on S. cerevisiae
biomass in single component solution shows a good agreement
with Freundlich model (see Figs. S4 and S5 in the supplementary
data). See the text below for more discussion on the models.
4.3. Effect of contact time
Equilibrium time is one of the most important parameters in
the design of economical wastewater treatment systems. In order
to determine the biosorption equilibrium time for BG and MB dyes,
the contact time was varied from 1 to 6 min at room temperature
and total concentration of 18 mg/L for both dyes. The pH was
adjusted at 6, and 50 mL of sample solution was stirred with 0.03 g
of adsorbent. The results were shown in Fig. 8 from which it is
observed that BG and MB biosorption onto S. cerevisiae biomass
relatively occurs rapidly and it approaches to equilibrium within
5 min at room temperature [27–29]. The rapid biosorption rate
that was observed at the beginning of biosorption process may be
explained by an increase in the number of active dye binding sites
on the biosorbent surface, which would result in an increased
concentration gradient between sorbate in the solution and on the
biomass surface. The rate of dye-biosorption is of great significance
for developing a microbial origin sorbent material for water-
treatment technology and practical application of process. We
have obtained a very rapid process by using S. cerevisiae which is
 M. Ghaedi et al. / Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233 231

Table 1
The comparison of different organisms as biosorbent in terms of their operating conditions.

Pollutant Organism Operating conditions Reference

pH teq (min)

Cadmium Aeromonas caviae 7.0 120 [29]

RR198 dye P. vulgaris 2.0 20 [30]
Brilliant green and Methylene blue dyes Saccharomyces cerevisiae 6.0 5 This work

very promising for such an important application. This fact is
proven from the comparison of the operating conditions of S.
cerevisiae to that of different organisms [30,31], see Table 1.
4.4. The effect of the initial pH on the biosorption of BG and MB
It is well documented that pH of the biosorption medium is an
important parameter affecting the biosorbents uptake of dye form
aqueous solutions. Therefore, to investigate the effect of initial pH on
the biosorption capacity of S. cerevisiae biomass, the batch
equilibrium was studied at different initial pH values ranging from
1.0 to 8.0. The results presented in Fig. 9, indicate a maximum
biosorption capacity of biomass at pH 6. The fact that the optimized
pH for this biosorption process is 6 which is close the pH of natural
aqueous solutions, could make a great opportunity for the
technology of dye removal from natural aqueous dye solutions.
Fig. 9 also shows weak biosorption at highly acidic conditions. As
seen from Fig. 9, the biosorption of BG and MB dyes on S. cerevisiae
biomass was controlled by pH-dependent biosorption mechanism.
In this situation, the biosorption mechanism occurs partly by ion
exchange via releasing exchangeable proton in the interlayer and
basal plane surfaces and partly via non-columbic interactions
between an adsorbed cation and a neutralized site [30,32,33].
4.5. The effect of the amount of adsorbent
The influence of amount of the adsorbent on BG and MB removal
efficiency was studied by changing the quantity of adsorbent when
the concentration of the dyes was chosen to be 18 mg/L at room
temperature, pH 6.0 and contact time of 5 min (see Fig. S6 in the
supplementary data). It was observed that with the increase in the
amount of adsorbent from 0.005 to 0.03 g, the removal percentage of
BG and MB increased [34]. This can be attributed to the increasing
surface area of the adsorbent as well as the availability of more
adsorption sites. However, there is a critical dose for which the
removal percentage approaches a constant value.
4.6. Application of multi-component biosorption models to
equilibrium data
The removal of BG and MB dyes was carried out at different initial
dye concentrations in the range of 1–18 mg/L, at optimum values of
all variables based on well-known equations and conditions
[20,26,35]. Two conventional models of Freundlich and Langmuir
were applied and compared to the experimental equilibrium data.
The data were found to be in good agreement with Freundlich in a
binary solution while discrepancy was seen with Langmuir (see Figs.
S7 and S8 in the supplementary data). The Langmuir equation for
homogenous surface with a finite number of identical sites with
negligible interaction is represented in the following linear form:
Ce 1 Ce
¼ þ (4)
qe K L Q m Q m
The values of Qm and KL (calculated based on slope and
intercept) and the correlation coefficient for Langmuir isotherm
are presented in Table S4 (see the supplementary data).
The following linear equation describes the Freundlich iso-
therm model.
1
logðqe Þ ¼ logðK F Þ þ logðC e Þ (5)
n
The values of KF and 1/n are determined from the intercept and
slope of linear plot of log(qe) versus log(Ce). As seen, for all dyes
studied, the high correlation coefficient of Freundlich model shows
its applicability for the interpretation of experimental equilibrium
data. Many studies on multi-component equilibrium have been
done. However none of them dealt with competitive biosorption
and only a few of them concerned with the selectivity of
biosorption processes. To model the experimental data, extensions
of several common isotherms can be used [36,37]. These models
are the extended Freundlich, the extended Langmuir, the Jain and
Snoeyink modified extended Langmuir, the P-factor, and the
interaction factor. In this work, the extended Freundlich and the P-
Factor models were used. The extended Freundlich can describe
multi-component biosorption [15]. The solute uptake per unit
weight, qi, in binary system is expressed as

nððK i =ni ÞÞ1=ni C i

qi ¼ h i1n þ DF j (6)
ðK i =ni Þ1=ni C i þ ðK j =n j Þ1=n j C j

where

DF j ¼ ðni  n j Þ
ðK i =ni Þ1=ni C i ðK j =n j Þ1=n j C j
2n
ln½ðK i =ni Þ1=ni C i ðK j =n j Þ1=n j C j ;
½ðK i =ni Þ1=ni C i þ ðK j =n j Þ1=n j C j 

1=n j
½ni ðK i =ni Þ1=ni C i þn j ðK j =n j Þ C j
n¼ 1=n j
½ðK i =ni Þ1=ni C i þðK j =n j Þ C j

The parameters Ki and ni are obtained from single biosorption

Fig. 9. Effect of pH on the removal of BG and MB by Saccharomyces cerevisiae
isotherm systems using Freundlich equation,
biomass at room temperature, contact time of 5 min, adsorbent dosage of 0.03 g in
50 mL and dye concentration of 8 mg/L for each dye. q ¼ KC 1=n (7)
232 M. Ghaedi et al. / Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233
P-Factor. This method is a correlative technique that has been
developed and applied to dye/adsorbent systems. It is an easy-to-
use method based on a ‘‘lumped’’ capacity factor Pi.
ðK L;i =aL;i Þsingle solute
Pi ¼
ðK L;i =aL;i Þmulti solute
where ðK L;i =aL;i Þsingle solute and ðK L;i =aL;i Þmultiple solute are the sorbent
monolayer capacity for component i in single- and multi-solute
system, respectively [17,38]. This model assumes a Langmuir
isotherm. Hence, for each component i, the multi-component
isotherm equation is described as:
0
KL;i C e;i;multi
qe;i;multi ¼
Pi ½1 þ a0L;i C e;i;multi 
The P-Factor was used to determine a ‘‘best fit’’ model based on
the single-component data to predict multi-component system
performance. It was found that the P-factor is good method to
predict and correlate the experimental data (see Table S5 in the
supplementary data). The Freundlich biosorption isotherm con-
stant, KF, and the corresponding correlation coefficient, 1/nF, were
determined from the slope and intercept of the respective line
which are shown in Table S5 (see the supplementary data). As seen,
the values of nF are higher than unity which indicate a physical
process for the biosorption of BG and MB onto the S. cerevisiae
biomass [39–41].
The prediction of multi-component equilibrium data has
always been complicated because of the involvement of the
interactive and competitive effects. Nevertheless, attempts were
carried out to predict and correlate multi-component data from
single component data. The simultaneous biosorption of BG and
MB onto S. cerevisiae biomass from binary mixtures were
investigated at pH 6.0 and room temperature and expressed by
the P-Factor and extended Freundlich isotherm models. The
competitive Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm constants evalu-
ated from modified biosorption models for BG and MB are given in
Table S5 (see the supplementary data). The P-Factor and the
extended Freundlich isotherm models show reasonably well fit to
the binary biosorption data of BG and MB dyes onto S. cerevisiae
biomass [42,43]. A comprehensive comparison of the experimental
and calculated qe values of BG and MB for isotherm data is shown in
Figs. S9 and S10 (see the supplementary data).
4.7. Kinetic study
The biosorption of a solute by a solid in aqueous solution
usually occurs with a complex kinetics. The biosorption rate is
strongly influenced by several parameters related to the state of
the solid (generally having very heterogeneous reactive surface)
and to the physico-chemical conditions under which biosorption is
occurred. To investigate the biosorption processes of BG and MB on
the adsorbents, pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order
biosorption were studied [44].
The biosorption kinetic data were described by the Lagergren
pseudo-first-order model. The Lagergren equation is commonly
expressed as follows:
dqt
¼ k1 ðqe  qt Þ
dt
where qe and qt (mg/g) are the biosorption capacity at equilibrium
and at time t, respectively, as well as k1 is the rate constant of
pseudo-first-order biosorption (L/min).
Using the following model, the value of k1 and qe were
calculated from the slope and intercept of the plot of log(qe  qt)
versus t, respectively [45].
k1 t
logðqe  qt Þ ¼ logðqe Þ  (11)
2:303
(8) The fact that the intercept is not equal qe means that the
reaction is unlikely first-order, regardless of the value of the
correlation coefficient. The variation in rate should be proportional
to the first power of concentration for strict surface biosorption.
However, the relationship between initial solute concentration and
rate of biosorption is linear when pore diffusion limits the
biosorption process. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient R2 for
each dye is relatively low for most biosorption data (see Table S6 in
the supplementary data), which indicates that the biosorption of
BG and MB onto adsorbent was not a first-order reaction.
(9)
Therefore, it is necessary to fit experimental data to another
model [46–48].
The biosorption kinetic may be described by the pseudo-second
order model, which is generally given by the following equation:
dqt
¼ k2 ðqe  qt Þ2 (12)
dt
Integrating the above equation in the interval 0 to t for t and 0 to
qt for qt, gives:
t 1 t
¼ þ (13)
qt k2 qe 2 qe
As mentioned above, the plot of log(qe  qt) versus t does not
show good results for the entire sorption period, while the plot of t/
qt versus t (see Fig. S11 in the supplementary data) give a straight
line. Values of k2 and equilibrium biosorption capacity qe were
calculated from the intercept and slope of the plot of t/qt versus t,
respectively (see Table S6 in the supplementary data). For all
concentrations and sorbent doses, the calculated qe values were
mainly closer to the experimental data and R2 values for pseudo-
second-order kinetic model were found to be larger than that for
pseudo-first order kinetic. This indicates a pseudo-second-order
kinetic model for the BG and MB biosorption system for the entire
sorption period [49].
5. Conclusion
Since real wastewaters contain many pollutants, biosorption
system design must be based on multi-component effluent.
Therefore, it is necessary to make multi-component equilibrium
data instead of just single ones. However, the problem of
overlapping the spectra needs to be resolved. To resolve binary
solutions with overlapping and to simultaneous determination
of BG and MB in binary solutions, the derivative spectrophoto-
metric method was successfully applied. S. cerevisiae which is an
environmental friendly sorbent was used for the biosorption of
Brilliant green (BG) and Methylene blue (MB) dyes in binary
mixture. There are two advantages for the use of this adsorbent.
First, its working pH condition with maximum biosorption
capacity of biomass is 6, which is close to the pH of natural
aqueous solutions. This makes the S. cerevisiae applicable for the
technology of dye removal from natural aqueous dye solutions.
Second, the considerably short (about 5 min) time for the
applied biosorption process is a big improvement for the dye
(10)
removal.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jiec.2012.08.006.
 M. Ghaedi et al. / Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (2013) 227–233
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