Transport studies for the sorption of copper ions by chitosan

Abstract The ability of chitosan, prepared from waste prawn shell, to sorb copper (II) ions from aqueous solutions has been studied. Equilibrium studies show that chitosan has a maximum sorption capacity for copper ions of about 40mg/g chitosan. The mass transport characteristics have been investigated by monitoring the kinetics in an agitated batch adsorber. An external mass transfer coefficient and an intraparticle diffusion rate parameter have been determined for a number of system variables including agitation, initial copper ion concentration, chitosan mass, chitosan particle size and solution temperature.