Effective mercury(II) bioremoval from aqueous solution, and its electrochemical determination.

This work proposed mercury elimination using agricultural waste (Allium Cepa L.). The biomass removed 99.4% of mercury, following a pseudo-second order kinetics (r = 0.9999). The Langmuir model was adequately fitted to the adsorption isotherm, thereby obtaining the maximum mercury adsorption capacity of 111.1 ± 0.3 mg g. The biomass showed high density of strong mercury chelating groups, thus making it economically attractive. Also, the implementation of a mercury-selective electrode for continuous determination in real time is proposed; this electrode replaces techniques like atomic absorption spectroscopy, thus it can be applied to real time studies. This work therefore presents a new perspective for removing mercury(II) from contaminated water for environmental remediation.