Orbital - Vol. 7 No. 2 - April-June 2015
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

Bioleaching of Primary Nickel Ore Using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans LR Cells Immobilized in Glass Beads

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  • Ellen Cristine Giese,
  • Patrícia Morgado Vaz
Ellen Cristine Giese
Center of Mineral Technology, CETEM
Patrícia Morgado Vaz
Center of Mineral Technology, CETEM
Published June 27, 2015
Keywords
  • Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans LR,
  • cell immobilization,
  • primary nickel ore,
  • bioleaching
How to Cite
(1)
Giese, E. C.; Vaz, P. M. Bioleaching of Primary Nickel Ore Using Acidithiobacillus Ferrooxidans LR Cells Immobilized in Glass Beads. Orbital: Electron. J. Chem. 2015, 7, 191-195.

Copyright (c) 2015 Orbital: The Electronic Journal of Chemistry

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Sulphide minerals are one of the most important sources of value metals. For several years, a large number of hydrometallurgical and biotechnological processes have been developed to leach low-grade sulphide ores and the conditions are well established. However, the management of microorganisms in the bioleaching process is not easy to handle. In this paper, the use of immobilized cells of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans LR in glass beads in bioleaching of primary nickel ore was evaluated. The column experiments inoculated with immobilized cells of A. ferrooxidans LR showed the same efficiency than the conventional method using free cells and is promising for application on a larger scale as it ensuring integrity and activity of biomining microorganisms and reduce process costs.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v7i2.698

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