Eco-Friendly Copper Recovery: Insights to Algal and Agricultural Waste Application.

Authors

Nelli Abrahamyan, Arevik Vardanyan, Sona Barseghyan, Laura Castro, Jesus Angel Muñoz, Ruiyong Zhang, Narine Vardanyan

Published in

Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation. Volume 98. Issue 7. Pages e70460.

Abstract

Copper release from mining and electronic waste poses an environmental challenge, requiring sustainable recovery technologies. This study investigated a biohydrometallurgical approach combining bioleaching and biosorption. Copper was mobilized from waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) using the iron-oxidizing bacterium Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, generating a copper-rich pregnant leach solution (PLS). Low-cost biosorbents, including agricultural wastes, spent coffee grounds, and algal biomass, were evaluated in batch experiments for Cu²⁺ removal from aqueous solutions. Among the tested materials, Fucus vesiculosus exhibited the highest adsorption performance, achieving 80.3% Cu²⁺ removal from synthetic solutions and 89.6% from diluted real pregnant leach solution at pH 6. Kinetic analysis showed that copper biosorption followed pseudo-first- and pseudo-second-order models, indicating physical adsorption and chemisorption. Desorption with EDTA achieved the highest efficiency (94.9%) while preserving biosorbent stability. These findings highlight F. vesiculosus as an eco-friendly, reusable biosorbent and support coupling bioleaching with biosorption for sustainable copper recovery from diverse electronic waste streams.

PMID:
42363254
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Jun 2026.

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