Abstract

Biosorption of contaminant like copper usingagricultural wastes like spent coffee grounds requires testing thecompatibility of the sorbents with the sorbates and finding theoptimum conditions for the process. This study is needed toavoid the disruptive effects of biosorption such as the generationof more wastes that eventually disrupts the balance in theenvironment. This paper is a baseline study to optimize theperformance of adsorption of copper in wastewater using twospecies of spent coffee grounds i.e., Arabica and Robusta. Theadsorptive capacities of pure blends of both species werecompared to the 50:50 blend in a fixed-bed column. It is aimed todetermine the optimum bed height, coffee variety and flow rateinside the column to reduce waste generated throughexperiments. It was found out that the optimum conditions were7 cm bed height and 20 mL/min flow rate. The adsorptivecapacities of the three varieties were 10.47, 13, and 15.41 mg/gfor pure Arabica, 50:50 blend and pure Robusta, respectively.