Copper and Zinc Recovery from Sulfide Concentrate by Novel Artificial Microbial Community

Xinglan Cui,Hongxia Li,Rongzhen Jin,Xuewu Hu,Ying Liu,Xiaokui Che,Qidong Zhang,Qi Zheng,Juan Zhong,Lei Wang,Xuetao Yuan

doi:10.3390/met12010045

Abstract

Exploring efficient methods to enhance leaching efficiency is critical for bioleaching technology to deal with sulfide concentrate. In our study, a novel artificial microbial community was established to augment the bioleaching efficiency and recovery of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn). The optimum parameters in bioleaching experiments were explored according to compare a series of conditions from gradient experiments: the pH value was 1.2, temperature was 45 °C, and rotation speed was 160 r/min, which were different with pure microorganism growth conditions. Under optimal conditions, the result of recovery for Cu and Zn indicated that the average leaching rate reached to 80% and 100% respectively, which almost increased 1.8 times and 1.2 times more than control (aseptic condition) group. Therefore, this method of Cu and Zn recovery using a new-type artificial microbial community is expected to be an environmentally-friendly and efficient bioleaching technology solution, which has the potential of large-field engineering application in the future.

Highlights

Mineral resources are the economic and material basis of human society
The sulfide concentrate used in our study was from Qinghai Derni flotation sulfide concentrate
The mineral component was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) on a Philips Diffractometer using

Summary

Introduction

Mineral resources are the economic and material basis of human society. With the proposal of green mine development concept, efficient exploitation of mineral resources and reduction of ecological environmental impact have been important principles for future exploitation and utilization of mineral resources [1]. Most mines in China have backward mining technology, enormous destruction and waste, too low recycling proportion, and low management efficiency [2]. As is known to us, with continuous decline in copper rich ore reserves, reprocessing of low-grade copper-bearing sulfide ores, accounting for >70% of the global copper reserves, has become inevitable [3,4,5]. Metal extraction from these low-grade ores using traditional smelting techniques is uneconomical. Most low-grade ores have been discarded [6,7,8]

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