With the global demand for economically important metals increasing, compounded by depletion of readily accessible ores, secondary resources and low-grade ores are being targeted to meet growing demands. Novel technologies developed within biobased industries, such as microbial biosurfactants, could be implemented improve sustainability traditional hydrometallurgy techniques. This study investi...

Metallurgical dusts are by-products from steel manufacturing. The high iron content of cast house dust (~64%) makes this by-product an interesting feedstock alternative. Therefore, its return into the internal steelmaking circuit, specifically in sinter plant, is a common practice industry. However, fraction also contains heavy metals, as zinc. As result re-entry zinc process, concentration bla...

Agitated bacterial tank bioleaching reactors are currently sparged with air to satisfy both oxygen and CO(2) requirements of microbial cells. Under high-sulphide loading conditions, as is the case with high-grade metal sulphide concentrates, the microbial and chemical demand for oxygen is significantly increased during the bioleaching process. Sparging with enriched oxygen gas may offer an alte...

An understanding of biofilm formation is relevant to the design of biological strategies to improve the efficiency of the bioleaching process and to prevent environmental damages caused by acid mine/rock drainage. For this reason, our laboratory is focused on the characterization of the molecular mechanisms involved in biofilm formation in different biomining bacteria. In many bacteria, the int...

As for geology, Zlatý Chlum is a highly varied locality with frequent metaquarzit, amphibolite, quartz as well deposits of sulphideores. This work deals the use Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans to bioleach polymetallic ores (Cu, al, Zn, and Fe) fromthis locality. Leaching lasted 5 weeks in bioreactor that ensured optimal conditions bioleaching. The results imply theexperiments were successful, le...

The detection of acidophilic microorganisms from mining environments by culture methods is time consuming and unreliable. Several PCR approaches were developed to amplify small-subunit rRNA sequences from the DNA of six bacterial phylotypes associated with acidic mining environments, permitting the detection of the target DNA at concentrations as low as 10 fg.