Mining biotechnology uses microbes "to extract metals from low-grade ores and also metal-containing waste material such as e-waste, battery waste, mining waste," Kaksonen explains.
Heap leaching is a process extensively used by the mining industry to recover metals from low-grade ores and large quantities of submarginal material resources.
The paper deals with experimental design and optimization of leaching process of uranium and associated metals from low-grade, Polish ores.
Although bacterial oxidation of sulfide materials results in the undesirable formation of acid mine drainage, the same reaction has been put to use for microbial leaching of copper, uranium, and other valuable metals from low-grade sulfide-containing ores.
The result is growing interest in the use of rock-eating bacteria to extract metals from low-grade ores, mining waste or industrial effluent.Rock-eating bacteria such as Acidithiobacillus and Leptospirillum are naturally occurring organisms that thrive in nasty, acidic environments.
Bionics is thus distinct from bioengineering (or biotechnology), which is the use of living things to perform certain industrial tasks, such as the culture of yeasts on petroleum to furnish food proteins, the use of microorganisms capable of concentrating metals from low-grade ores, and the digesting of wastes by bacteria in biochemical batteries to supply electrical energy.
Bioleaching is a promising technology which utilizes microorganisms to recover metals from low-grade ores and e-waste (Hong and Valix 2014).
Bioleaching in mine heaps is a widely-employed process used to extract metals from low-grade ores, which would not be economically extracted by any other method.
Most other organisms recovered from acid mine drainage will prosper at a pH of 2.5 and make do anywhere from a pH of 1 to 4. Other researchers have also come across traces of microbial life in highly acidic settings, such as reactors used to leach precious metals from low-quality ore.
Agglomeration of fine mineral particle into robust and porous granules is an essential precursor to heap leaching and valuable metal recovery from low grade lateritic ores.
