Nashrieh Shimi va Mohandesi Shimi Iran

Nashrieh Shimi va Mohandesi Shimi Iran

Bioleaching of Copper Concentrate Using a Mixture of Moderate Thermophilic Bacteria

Document Type : Research Article

Authors
Sajjadeh Riyahi Medvara,
Karim Zare
Faculty of Converging Sciences and Technologies, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, I.R. IRAN
Abstract
Bioleaching of copper concentrate containing chalcopyrite has been the focus of researchers in the past years, so that they may be able to overcome the problems of leaching this mineral. In this research, the bioleaching method was used in Erlenmeyer flask using a mixture of moderate thermophilic bacteria to leaching copper from copper concentrate containing chalcopyrite mineral in 9K culture medium. To optimize the effective parameters in the bioleaching process, i.e. particle size, pH, pulp density and bivalent iron concentration, the design of the experiment was used by Design Expert software. The highest copper recovery of about 58.55% was obtained in conditions of particle size of 10 microns, pH of 1.47, pulp density of 9.38% and bivalent iron concentration of 1.77 g/L. Other parameters, i.e. percentage of bacteria inoculation, temperature, stirring speed and leaching time were considered constant and equal to 15%, 50°C, 144 rpm and 10 days, respectively. Also, to further increase copper recovery, sodium chloride and polyethylene glycol were also used in the presence of bacteria. The results showed that the presence of the mentioned additives has a positive effect on the copper leaching.
Keywords
Copper concentrate
Chalcopyrite
Leaching
Mixture of moderate thermophilic bacteria
Design expert

Subjects

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