The discharge of surplus phosphate in water results in eutrophication, thereby reducing dissolved oxygen and threatening aquatic ecosystems. This study focuses on the synthesis of a novel sustainable microbe-biopolymer composite (BS) through a facile method using zirconium impregnated cellulose (CZ) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae for phosphate adsorption. Both the BS and CZ were characterized through FT-IR, BET, XRF, TGA, SEM-EDX, XRD, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis. The adsorption was effective over a wide range of pH (2.0–9.0), and the mesoporous adsorbent (BS) involving the synergistic effect of immobilization significantly enhances the adsorption efficiency from 60 to 95%. The maximum adsorption capacity was also enhanced from 22.11 to 34.23 mg·g–1. The adsorption process is spontaneous and endothermic and follows pseudo-second-order kinetics. Cyclic network modeling provides insight into the interaction of phosphate with zirconium and the functional groups on the microbe surface. The BS material is stable up to four cycles of regeneration, and the phosphate is recovered as its sodium salt.
Rajendran et al. (Tue,) studied this question.