Abstract
Low-temperature biohydrometallurgy is implicated in metal recovery in alpine mining areas, but bioleaching using microbial consortia at temperatures <10°C was scarcely discussed. To this end, a mixed culture was used for chalcopyrite bioleaching at 6°C. The mixed culture resulted in a higher copper leaching rate than the pure culture of Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans strain YL15. High-throughput sequencing technology showed that Acidithiobacillus spp. and Sulfobacillus spp. were the mixed culture’s major lineages. Cyclic voltammograms, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy unveiled that the mixed culture enhanced the dissolution reactions, decreased the corrosion potential and increased the corrosion current, and lowered the charge transfer resistance and passivation layer impedance of the chalcopyrite electrode compared with the pure culture. This study revealed the mechanisms via which the mixed culture promoted the chalcopyrite bioleaching.
Highlights
Bioleaching as a low-cost biotechnology offers an alternative to traditional pyrometallurgical methods to extract valuable metals from sulfide minerals (Hedrich et al, 2016; Banerjee et al, 2017; Pathak et al, 2017; Hu et al, 2020; Srichandan et al, 2020)
The mixed culture and the pure culture of At. ferrivorans strain YL15 obtained in our lab were used for bioleaching of chalcopyrite at 6◦C
A mixed culture was used in chalcopyrite bioleaching at low temperature
Summary
Bioleaching as a low-cost biotechnology offers an alternative to traditional pyrometallurgical methods to extract valuable metals from sulfide minerals (Hedrich et al, 2016; Banerjee et al, 2017; Pathak et al, 2017; Hu et al, 2020; Srichandan et al, 2020). Studies on bioleaching have been extensively performed using mesophilic, moderately thermophilic and extremely thermophilic acidophiles (Gu et al, 2013; Acosta et al, 2014; Li et al, 2018; Ai et al, 2019). On the contrary, bioleaching at low temperatures was only discussed in limited documents. Microbial oxidation of sulfide minerals could occur at relatively low temperatures (Ahonen and Tuovinen, 1991, 1992; Elberling et al, 2000). Studies using At. ferrivorans in bioleaching of sulfide minerals at low temperatures have been performed. It was found that S0 formed during chalcopyrite bioleaching and the content of S0 increased until dissolution ceased, suggesting S0 passivation (Liljeqvist et al, 2013; Zeng et al, 2020)
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