Recovery of zinc, níkel, cobalt and other metals by bioleaching

VIERA MARISA; POGLIANI CRISTINA; DONATI EDGARDO

Microbial processing of metal sulphides

Springer

Año: 2007; p. 103 - 120

Bioleaching is currently an economical alternative for treating specific sulfidic ores. Commercial scale bioleaching processes are in operation for the recovery of copper from sulfide minerals, especially in developing countries. These operations treat copper ores by using heap-leaching technology; in addition, this technology has been used for the recovery of uranium. Bioleaching is also successfully applied in the pre-treatment (biooxidation) of refractory gold minerals. Since 1986, large-scale biooxidation plants have been operating at several locations in the world. These plants use tank-leaching technologies, although there are some commercial applications in which refractory gold ores are treated in heaps.  Bioleaching may be used as an alternative process for the extraction and recovery of other metals like nickel, zinc, cobalt, and molybdenum among others. Such metals can occur in significant quantities in sulfidic ores or can be associated with them. Although bioleaching could have the same advantages over other technologies for the recovery of these metals, as occurs in the cases of copper and gold, there are practically no commercial applications of this technique.