Biosorción de plomo, zinc y plata con biomasa microbiana aislada de aguas residuales de la provincia de Jaén

Resum

This doctoral thesis focuses on the study of biosorption with microorganisms, one of the most promising technologies for the treatment of wastewaters contaminated with heavy metals. First, ubiquitous microorganisms were isolated from wastewater treatment plants in the province of Jaen. Ten of them were selected because of their resistance and tolerance to the three investigated metals (lead, zinc and silver) and were identified by molecular techniques. Finally, the bacterium Klebsiella sp. 3S1 was selected to perform equilibrium and kinetic studies, the optimization of the factors involved and the investigation of bacteria-metal interaction mechanism for all three metals. The viability of Klebsiella sp. 3S1 for the biosorption of lead in a fixed bed column operating in continuous mode was also tested. It was evidenced the formation of a bacterial biofilm on the ceramic support, with high metal uptake capacity and high regeneration efficiency.