Metal pollution issues is becoming increasing day by day common in Egypt and elsewhere due to rapid growth the human population, industrialization foundries, smelters and urbanization. Heavy metals are the major problematic pollutants which poses a significant threat public health, as they are continual and non-biodegradable. Thus, their phytoremediation becomes inevitable and extensive efforts to apply the absorption technique which seems to be a promising alternative, less expensive, high efficiency that is being used widely for removal of heavy metal from aqueous media.

In the present study the dry mass of two weeds, Lotus corniculatus and Amaranthus viridis were used as adsorbents to study the process of biosorption. The studied plants have not gained much importance and are common in the Egyptian waste lands. For the present study different concentration (10, 50 and 100mg/l) of four heavy metals (cadmium, chromium, lead and zinc) were tested for the adsorption by the two plants.

Results showed that the adsorption process was very rapid for the two weeds (90% of equilibrium adsorption capacity was achieved) for the removal of the tested heavy metals (cadmium, chromium, lead and zinc). The FT-IR, XRD and phytochemical tests analyses have been carried out in order to find the structural and chemical composition (functional groups) of the dry biomass of the two plants to clearly establish a protocol for the adsorption mechanism involved for removal of heavy metals by eco-friendly and cost effectiveness technique. The experimental results indicated that the feasibility of using effective, easy, and abundantly available dry biomass of the tested weeds can be easily converted to good adsorbent without any pretreatment.