Chile has a great tradition of producing and exporting copper. Over the last several decades, it has become the first producer on an international level. Its copper reserves are also the most important on the planet. However, after years of mineral e...
The commercial application of copper bioleaching, an environmentally-friendly approach for low-grade and secondary mineral resources recycling, has increased worldwide since the 2000s. As the world’s second-largest economic entity and the largest dev...
World copper (Cu) production has been strongly affected by arsenic (As) content, because As-rich Cu concentrates are not desirable in the metal foundries. When As-rich Cu concentrates are processed by smelting they release As as volatile compounds in...
Flotation wastes are becoming a valuable secondary raw material and source of many metals and semimetals worldwide with the possibilities of industrial recycling. The flotation tailings contain oxide and sulfide minerals that have not been sufficient...
A new heterotrophic strain, named Providencia sp. JAT-1, was isolated and used in bioleaching of low-grade complex copper ore. The strain uses sodium citrate as a carbon source and urea as a nitrogen source to produce ammonia. The optimal growth cond...
The use of biotechnology to explore low-grade ore deposits and mining tailings is one of the most promising alternatives to reduce environmental impacts and costs of copper extraction. However, such technology still depends on improvements to be full...
Sulfuric acid solution containing ferric iron is the extractant for industrial heap bioleaching of copper sulfides. To start a heap bioleaching plant, sulfuric acid is usually added to the irrigation solution to maintain adequate acidity (pH 1.0&ndas...
This paper presents a case study on heap bioleaching at the Monywa copper mine in Myanmar. Through mineralogical characterization and leaching tests, specific heap bioleaching technologies were developed and implemented at the mine. These technologie...
The aim of the present work was to perform copper, nickel, and platinum group metals (PGMs) recovery from low-grade copper–nickel concentrate containing pyrrhotite, pentlandite, and chalcopyrite by bioleaching in stirred tank reactors in batch...
Due to the emission of hazardous chemicals and heat, the traditional smelting method used to extract critical minerals from ore and mine slag/tailings is considered bad for the environment. An environmentally friendly procedure that can stabilize sul...
Recovering copper from end-of-life electronics, especially from printed circuit boards, provides significant economic benefits, reduces environmental impact, and supports a circular economy. This case study presents a data-driven approach to predicti...
Bioleaching has been proven to be an efficient and environment-friendly method for processing metalliferous ore and waste printed circuit boards (PCBs), a type of urban mine waste. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) play a major role in the att...
The study and development of new sustainable mining methods to exploit low-grade ores and secondary metallic resources are essential to meet global demand and contribute to caring for the environment. Copper is one of the most widely used metals and...
Copper slag, a by-product of copper ore and concentrate smelting, is rich in non-ferrous metals; therefore, it has been considered a valuable raw material in recent years. This study aimed to compare the extraction of zinc, copper, and cobalt from tw...
In the present work the effect of alkaline sulfide leaching (ASL) on the extraction of copper and zinc from low-grade copper concentrate containing chalcopyrite, tennantite, sphalerite, and pyrite during batch and continuous bioleaching experiments w...
Bioleaching, a process catalyzed by acidophilic microorganisms, offers a sustainable approach to metal extraction from sulfide minerals. Chalcopyrite, the world’s most abundant copper sulfide, presents challenges due to surface passivation limi...
A new strain of Leptospirillum sp. Ksh-L was isolated from a dump-bioleaching system of the Kashen copper-molybdenum mine (South Caucasus). Ksh-L is an obligate chemolithoautotroph, capable of oxidizing ferrous iron (Fe2+). Cells are Gram-negative an...
The efficient extraction of copper as a valuable metal from waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) is currently attracting growing interest. Here, we systematically investigated the impact of bacteria on the efficiency of copper leaching from WPCBs, an...
Rare earth elements (REE) are essential in high-technology and environmental applications, where their importance and demand have grown enormously over the past decades. Many lanthanide and actinide minerals in nature are phosphates. Minerals like mo...
Bioleaching of Cu from the copper concentrate of Armanis gold-bearing polymetallic ore (Armenia) was investigated. The main objective was revealing high active bacteria and their association, as well as optimizing the bioleaching process with their a...
The catalysis of carbon materials with different specific surface areas (SSA) (2, 400, 800 and 1200 m2/g) on complex copper ores bioleaching by moderately mixed thermophiles was investigated. The copper extractions increased with the rise in SSA of c...
The goal of this work was to study the bioleaching of arsenic-containing polymetallic concentrate that contained 6.2% Cu, 7.3% Zn and 1.7% As, depending on different temperatures and in the presence of CO2 and molasses in the medium, as well as the d...
The depletion of high-grade copper ore reserves in Kazakhstan, coupled with the increasing proportion of refractory ores and the high costs of extraction and processing, necessitates the development of efficient and economically viable technological...
Bioleaching represents a sustainable and economically viable method for recovering metals from sulfide ores. This study evaluates the bioleaching potential of eight native mesophilic strains isolated from chalcopyrite ore sourced from the Toquepala m...
Copper slags produced in vast quantities in smelting operations could be considered as secondary material sources instead of stockpiling them in landfills. This study investigates the recovery of valuable metals from copper slag and the valorisation...
Bacterial isolates assigned to the species Alicyclobacillus tolerans, which occupies an intermediate position between an organotrophic genus Alicyclobacillus and mixotrophic genus Sulfobacillus, were revealed as members of the acidophilic chemolithot...
The aim of the present research was to examine the process of bioleaching and the application of a combined process for the recovery of copper and nickel from industrial sand deposits. The investigated sample of sands finer than 0.1 mm in size contai...
Biofilm formation is a molecular assembly process occurring at interfaces, such as in bioleaching processes. The real time monitoring of the marker bands of amide I/amide II by FTIR microspectroscopy during Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans colonization...
Industrial waste is accumulating, while primary metal resources are depleting. Bioleaching has been shown to be a cost-effective and environmentally friendly approach to metal recovery from waste, but improved designs are needed for large-scale recyc...
Some archaea from the genus Sulfolobus are important for bioleaching of copper, where metal resistant microorganisms are required. Biofilm generation is one of the ways microorganisms cope with some stimuli in nature, including heavy metals. The resp...
The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of (bio)hydrometallurgical methods for metal extraction from historical copper slags. Two types of slags (amorphous slag—AS, and crystalline slag—CS) were subjected to 24 to 48 h of le...
Two newly isolated bacterial strains were isolated from activated sludge and identified as Coniochaeta fodinicola (C. fodinicola) and Talaromyces barcinensis (T. barcinensis) by 16S rDNA. C. fodinicola and T. barcinensis were used to biolea...
Globally, the amounts of metal ore deposits have been declining, so the research directions investigating the extraction of metals from materials that are classified as waste are gaining more importance every year. High concentrations of Cu, Pb, Zn,...
Bioleaching of the bulk copper–nickel sulfide concentrate was proposed as a method to remove nickel from it and to obtain a concentrate containing copper as chalcopyrite. This approach is based on the different refractoriness of sulfide mineral...
A new heterotrophic strain, named Providencia sp. JAT-1, was isolated and used in bioleaching of low-grade complex copper ore. The strain uses sodium citrate as a carbon source and urea as a nitrogen source to produce ammonia. The optimal growth cond...
In this work, a biological recovery of metals (copper and gold) from computer printed circuit board (PCB) waste was carried out by bioleaching using Aspergillus niger. Three bioleaching methods comprising one or two steps or using spent medium were t...
The use of microorganisms in mining processes is a technology widely employed around the world. Leaching bacteria are characterized by having resistance mechanisms for several metals found in their acidic environments, some of which have been partial...
In this work, we proposed a method for biohydrometallurgical processing of mining (old pyritic flotation tailings) and metallurgical (slag) wastes to recover gold and other nonferrous metals. Since this processing allows the removal of toxic metals o...
Studies of thermophilic microorganisms have shown that they have a considerable biotechnological potential due to their optimum growth and metabolism at high temperatures. Thermophilic archaea have unique characteristics with important biotechnologic...
The goal of the present work was to study the recovery of copper, nickel, and platinum group metals (PGMs) (Pt and Pd) from low-grade copper–nickel ore containing pyrrhotite, pentlandite, and chalcopyrite by column bioleaching followed by cyani...
The feasibility of processing low-grade copper-nickel ores by heap bioleaching was investigated. It was found that an iron-oxidizing strain of acidophilic microorganisms, Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans, is effective in the leaching of sulfide ores fro...
In the actual mining scenario, copper bioleaching, mainly raw mined material known as run-of-mine (ROM) copper bioleaching, is the best alternative for the treatment of marginal resources that are not currently considered part of the profitable reser...
Chalcopyrite is the richest copper sulfide mineral in the world, but it is also the most resistant to biohydrometallurgical processing. To promote the bioleaching of chalcopyrite, a nonionic surfactant, t-octyl phenoxy polyethoxy ethanol (Triton X-10...
Overcoming the slow-leaching kinetics of refractory primary copper sulfides is crucial to secure future copper sources. Here, the effect of carbon was investigated as a catalyst for a bioleaching reaction. First, the mechanism of carbon-assisted biol...
Bacterial pre-oxidation of refractory gold concentrates generates large volumes of leachate and requires a significant supply of nutrients to support bacterial growth. Therefore, bioleachate reuse reduces both water consumption and the nutrients requ...
This review paper explores the potential of bioleaching as a sustainable alternative for recovering metals from solid matrices. With over 12 billion tons of solid waste annually worldwide, bioleaching provides a promising opportunity to extract metal...
Low-temperature bioleaching is relevant to the recovery of metals in alpine mines, but its development has been constrained by low bioleaching rates at high pulp concentrations. To this end, the bioleaching effect of the microbial community after the...
The recycling of electronic scrap is an important subject not only from an environmental aspect but also for recovering metal resources such as copper. In this work, the microbial extraction of copper and other metals (Cu, Ni, Co, Fe and Al) present...
Chloride ions can enhance the bioleaching of copper minerals, yet most biomining microorganisms are highly sensitive to chloride and cannot survive or colonize mineral surfaces in saline environments. Chloride tolerance varies among acidophilic iron-...
The catalytic mechanism of Ag+ for chalcopyrite bioleaching by mesophilic culture (at 30 °C) and thermophilic culture (at 48 °C) was investigated using synchrotron radiation-based X-ray diffraction (SR-XRD) and S K-edge and Fe L-edge X-ray ab...
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