Bioleaching of Gold from Sulfidic Gold Ore Concentrate and Electronic Waste by Roseovarius tolerans and Roseovarius mucosus
Kanjana Kudpeng, Tsing Bohu, Christina Morris, Paitip Thiravetyan, Anna H. Kaksonen
Abstract
Gold bioleaching mediated by iodide oxidizing bacteria (IOB) has been proposed as a sustainable alternative to conventional technologies such as cyanidation. This study evaluated the ability of two IOB sourced from a commercial culture collection, Roseovarius (R.) tolerans DSM 11457T and R. mucosus DSM 17069T, to bioleach gold from electronic waste (e-waste) (1030 ppm gold) and sulfidic gold ore concentrate (45 ppm gold) using one-step, two-step and spent medium leaching at 1% pulp density over 10 days. Two-step bioleaching of ore concentrate resulted in the highest gold leaching yields (approximately ~100% and 34% for R. tolerans and R. mucosus, respectively), followed by spent medium leaching and one-step leaching. The yields remained low for e-waste with both strains (maximum 0.93% and 1.6% for R. tolerans and R. mucosus, respectively) and decreased over time, likely due to the instability of the solubilized gold at relatively low redox potentials (<300 mV vs. Ag/AgCl). Another limiting factor may be the partial inhibition of bacterial growth in the presence of the ore concentrate and e-waste. Therefore, future studies should evaluate the pre-treatment of the ore concentrate and e-waste to remove inhibitory and oxidant consuming compounds before bioleaching with IOB to optimize leaching yields.