GEES (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences), The University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK, CE3C – Centre for Ecology Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity Group and Universidade dos Ac ores – Departamento de Cîencias e Engenharia do Ambiente, 9700-042 Angra do Hero ısmo, Ac ores, Portugal, Dep. de Cîencias Agr arias, CMMG (Centro de Estudos do Clima M...

Mining and metallurgy have negative consequences for the environment [1-3] and lead to changes in geological [4] and climatic conditions [5]. Mining-metallurgy operations include the extraction, preparing of ores (crushing ore and flotation), processing of concentrates, and the disposal of waste rock and by-products. The main waste in mining and metallurgy are waste rocks, flotation tailings an...

Introduction: The Iberian Pyritic Belt (IPB) consists of a 250-km long geological unit included into the South-Portuguese geotectonical zone of the Iberian Peninsula. It is comprised by an acid volcanosedimentary complex ranging in age from upper Devonian to Carboniferous where different metallic ores were formed in response to hydrotermalism and tectonic related to the Variscan Orogeny [1, 2]....

Acidophilic microorganisms thrive in extremely low pH natural and man-made environments such as acidic lakes, some hydrothermal systems, acid sulfate soils, sulfidic regoliths and ores, as well as metal and coal mine-impacted environments. The most widely studied acidophiles, prokaryotes that oxidize reduced iron and/or sulfur, are able to catalyze the oxidative dissolution of metal sulfide min...

The biomining bacterium Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans oxidizes sulfide ores and promotes metal solubilization. The efficiency of this process depends on the attachment of cells to surfaces, a process regulated by quorum sensing (QS) cell-to-cell signalling in many Gram-negative bacteria. At. ferrooxidans has a functional QS system and the presence of AHLs enhances its attachment to pyrite. How...

The concept of microbiological leaching have played a greater role to recover valuable metals from various sulfide minerals or low grade ores during the middle era of twentieth century and that continued till the end of the century. Slowly, due to depletion of ore/minerals, and implementation of stricter environmental rules, microbiological leaching process has been shifted for its application ...

Cyanidation is the main process for gold and silver recovery from its ores. In this study, a process is proposed to recover copper and cyanide from barren solutions from the Merrill-Crowe cementation process with zinc dust. This technology is based on inducing nucleated precipitation of copper and silver in a serpentine reactor, using sodium sulfide as the precipitator, and sulfuric acid for pH...

the term biomining have been coined to refer to the use of microorganisms in mining processes as in the biooxidation of refractory gold minerals. the biooxidation of refractory gold ores presents similar characteristics when compared with roasting and pressure oxidation. almost without exception, microbial extraction procedures are more environmentally friendly. the isolated bacteria in this st...