Investigation of Competitive and Noncompetitive Adsorption of Some Heavy Metals Ions on Leucodon sciuroides (Hedw.) Schwägr.

Heavy metals are an important pollutant group. Adsorption is one of the methods used to remove heavy metals from the environment. Mosses were preferred as bio-indicators because they have the capacity to accumulate many elements by their high surface-to-volume ratio. Leucodon sciuroides (Hedw.) Schwägr. (LS) are mosses that play an important part of the ecosystem and are collected from the Ida Mountain (Kazdag) region of Çanakkale (Turkey). For the purpose of determining the adsorption capacity of heavy metal ion (Pb2+, Cd2+, Co2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, and Cu2+) analysis conditions, pH, contact time, and adsorbent amounts were determined and the maximum adsorption capacity was calculated with the help of the relevant isotherms. Heavy metal concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. It was determined that the optimum adsorption for mosses was 30 min at pH = 6.0 (the pH at which maximum adsorption occurs). The adsorption event shows that some divalent cations fit the Freundlich isotherm and some fit the Langmuir isotherm model. A pseudo-second-order reaction best fits the kinetic data for metal ions. Among the six metal ions studied, the highest adsorption was observed in Pb2+ and Cu2+ cations. According to the competitive adsorption results, the moss has a great advantage in determining the Pb2+ and Cu2+ cations industrially as well as other metals and in removing other metal impurities from the environment. Also, LS is exploited as a biosorbent to remove metal ions from aqueous solutions and can be used as a biomarker.