Abstract

Iron and Zinc ions are considered to pose great risks to living things and there is the need in providing an alternative environmentally friendly and cost-effective technique such as sorption for the remediation of Iron and Zinc ions in natural water bodies using microorganisms. This research work contains an analysis on sorption of Iron and Zinc ions from Lake Gerio water in a batch process system using an immobilized baker’s yeast. The optimal parametric factors affecting sorption for Iron and Zinc ions onto immobilized baker’s yeast of contact time, sorbent dosage and temperature in a batch process system were investigated. The sorbent developed was characterized using Scanning electron microscope and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The optimum uptake of Iron and Zinc ions by the sorbent were recorded to be 249.55 mg/g and 120.05 mg/g, respectively for contact time (180 min), temperature (25 ℃ ), and sorbent dosage (5 g) in the batch process system. Models obtained for Iron and Zinc ions uptake by sorbent were both significant with same P-values of < 0.0001. Higher F-value of 724.9024522 and lower coefficient of variance of 2.363626919 %, for Iron ions compare to Zinc ions with lower F-value of 169.5968982 and coefficient of variance value of higher 4.864852 %, implies better fitness of the Iron ions model. The coefficient of regression R2, and adjusted R2 were depicted as 0.998469573 and 0.997092188, respectively for Iron ions; whereas coefficient of regression R2, and adjusted R2 of Zinc ions were recorded as 0.99349116 and 0.987633204, respectively, further confirm that uptake of Iron ions give better fitness to that of Zinc ions by the Baker’s yeast sorbent from Lake Gerio water . The results show that immobilized living baker’s yeast is efficient in the removal of Iron and Zinc ions from Lake Gerio water as sorbent.