Extracting copper and cobalt from non-ferrous residues by iron- and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria

How to recycle metals from the waste resources becomes a hotspot all around the world. Non-ferrous residues, which was produced by non-ferrous melting industry, and various of Cu and Co compounds exist in the residues in the form of Cu_xO_y, Cu_xS_y, Co_xS_y. In order to efficiently extract valuable metals from the non-ferrous residues, this study investigated the bioleaching behavior of Cu and Co from non-ferrous residues, using iron-oxidizing bacteria (IOB, Leptospirillum ferriphilum CS13) and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB, Acidithiobacillus caldus S2) by controlling the microbial composition, initial pH, and initial ferrous ion concentration. The results showed that IOB had a better performance on extracting Cu and Co than that of SOB, especially for Cu. Furthermore, 77.7 and 79.8% of Cu and Co were extracted under the optimal ratio of the initial number of IOB and SOB (1:1) after bioleaching, which was more than that when bioleaching by any one of these two kinds of bacteria. However, the changes of initial pH and ferrous ion concentration could not significantly enhance bioleaching performance. The results indicated that bioleaching had a good performance on recovering of metals from non-ferrous residues and excellent application prospect for the cleaner resource recycling.