The effect of applied DC potentials both in the positive and negative range, on the activity and growth of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, is discussed. In general, application of positive potentials up to +1000 mV in an acid bioleaching medium was found to be detrimental to bacterial activity, while the impression of negative potentials enhanced both their activity and growth through electrochemica...

in this research work, the zinc extraction was investigated, using bioleaching process from a low grade zinc concentrate which was produced from the accumulated flotation tailings. zinc content was initially upgraded to 11.97% by flotation process. bioleaching experiments were designed and carried out by a mixed culture of acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, leptospir...

Room-temperature ferromagnetism is observed in undoped sphalerite and wurtzite CdS nanostructures which are synthesized by hydrothermal methods. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy results indicate that the sphalerite CdS samples show a spherical-like shape and the wurtzite CdS ones show a flower-like shape, both of which are aggregated by lots of smaller particles...

Ambient S annealing was adopted to regulate the crystallinity of a ZnS microsphere, which resulted in a significant improvement in the photocatalytic hydrogen production activity (PHPA). Moreover, with S ambient treatment, wurtzite ZnS showed better PHPA than sphalerite ZnS, possibly because the inter-polar electric field of the wurtzite phase could promote the separation of photo-excited elect...

The reactivity of the protonated and hydroxylated sphalerite (1 1 0) surface with xanthate was simulated using the density functional theory (DFT). The difference between the energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of the sphalerite surface and the energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital of xanthate (  was used to compare the reaction capability of xanthate with fresh and fun...

Reactions among minerals and organic compounds in hydrothermal systems are critical components of the Earth's deep carbon cycle, provide energy for the deep biosphere, and may have implications for the origins of life. However, there is limited information as to how specific minerals influence the reactivity of organic compounds. Here we demonstrate mineral catalysis of the most fundamental com...

Based on the JK Drop Weight test and principle of selective crushing, a multicomponent complex ore with its component minerals, i.e., pyrrhotite, sphalerite, quartz, was used to explore impact crushing characteristics relationship between minerals. Results show that order resistance is quartz > pyrrhotite sphalerite. The particle-size-distribution characteristic curve products always “sandwi...