Biohydrometallurgy

Biohydrometallurgy is a subfield within hydrometallurgy which includes aspects of biotechnology.

Definition

• Interdisciplinary field involving processes that
  • make use of microbes, usually bacteria and archaea - bio
  • mainly take place in aqueous environment – hydro
  • deal with metal production and treatment of metal containing materials and solutions – metallurgy
• "Biohydrometallurgy may be defined, in very general terms, as the branch of biotechnology dealing with the study and application of the economic potential of the interactions between the microbial world and the mineral kingdom. It concerns, thus, all those engaged, directly or indirectly, in the exploitation of mineral resources and in environmental protection: geologists, economic geologists, mining engineers, metallurgists, hydrometallurgists, chemists and chemical engineers. In addition to these specialists, there are the microbiologists whose work is indispensable in the design, implementation and running of biohydrometallurgical processes."
• Biohydrometallurgy was first used more than 300 years ago to recover copper. The uses have evolved to extracting gold, uranium, and other metals.

Applications

Biohydrometallurgy is used to perform processes involving metals, for example, microbial mining, oil recovery, bioleaching, water-treatment and others. Biohydrometallurgy is mainly used to recover certain metals from sulfide ores. It is usually utilized when conventional mining procedures are too expensive or ineffective in recovering a metal such as copper, cobalt, gold, lead, nickel, uranium and zinc.

See also

• Bacterial oxidation

External links

• BioMineWiki - a wiki on biohydrometallurgy