Cellulose emerges as an alternative for the treatment of water contaminated with heavy metals due to its abundant biomass and its proven potential in the adsorption of pollutants. The aquatic plant Eichhornia crassipes is an option as raw material in the contribution of cellulose due to its enormous presence in contaminated wetlands, rivers, and lakes. The efficiency in the removal of heavy metals is due to the cation exchange between the hydroxyl groups and carboxyl groups present in the biomass of E. crassipes with heavy metals. Through different chemical and physical transformations of the biomass of E. crassipesThe objective of this review article is to provide a discussion on the different mechanisms of adsorption of the biomass of E. crassipes to retain heavy metals and dyes. In addition to estimating equilibrium, times through kinetic models of adsorption and maximum capacities of this biomass through equilibrium models with isotherms, in order to design one biofilter for treatment systems on a larger scale represented the effluents of a real industry.

The aim of this work is to design a fixed-bed column with vegetal biomass of Eichhornia crassipes and the process of recycling it for treatment via the adsorption of water loaded with chromium (VI). In the first stage, the relationship between the fixed-bed density and the microparticle density is calculated, giving a model for the design of the fixed bed. Using this model, two systems for the treatment of Cr (VI)-contaminated water were designed and built. The vegetable biomass at three particle diameters of 0.212 mm, 0.30 mm and 0.45 mm was evaluated in the removal of Cr (VI) from water using the designed fixed-bed systems, giving the best removal of Cr (VI) with the lowest size particles and allowing the validation of the proposed model with the Thomas model. The incorporation of iron into the biomass allowed for the treatment of near 2.0 L of polluted solution, removing around 90% of Cr (VI), while it was only possible to treat nearly 1.5 L when using raw biomass, removing around 80% of Cr (VI). The recycling of the biomass was achieved via the elution of Cr (VI) with EDTA, permitting the reuse of the material for more than five treatment cycles.

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En Colombia se producen más de 2’000.000 de toneladas de arroz y por lo tanto aproximadamente 400.000 toneladas de cascarilla. Este es un subproducto con altos contenidos de polisacáridos que puede ser utilizadopara la producción de azúcares fermentables y su posterior biotransformación en ácido láctico, como alternativa de valorización. En este trabajo se estudióla aplicación de pretratamiento alcalino (NaOH 2 y 3%(m/v), 121 °C, 0,1 MPa, 1h) para romper la estructura compleja de la cascarilla y favorecer la producción de ácido láctico mediante un proceso de hidrólisis y fermentación simultáneas (HFS) (40 °C, 100 rpm, 48 h).En el proceso de HFS, se estudió la producción de ácido láctico a diferentes concentraciones de cascarilla de arroz (pretratada y sin tratamiento) como sustrato(10, 40 y 80 g/L), utilizando enzimas comerciales y Lactobacillus delbrueckii. La máxima concentraciónde ácido láctico obtenida fue de 1,81 ± 0,11 g/L a las 12 h de proceso utilizando cascarilla sin pretratar (80g/L) y el máximo rendimiento Y ps fue de 0,075 g de ácido láctico/g de cascarilla, utilizando 20 g/L como sustrato pretratado con NaOH al 3%. Aunque este pretratamiento favorece la producción de ácido láctico a bajas concentraciones de sustrato en el proceso HFS, es necesario explorar otras posibilidades para mejorar los rendimientos obtenidos.