Estimation of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans concentrations

Abstract

A method is presented for estimating Thiobacillus ferrooxidans populations as bacterial nitrogen in systems where inorganic nitrogen may precipitate as ammoniojarosite. The bacterial nitrogen is estimated as the difference between the total nitrogen determined by Kjeldahl digestion – caustic distillation and the inorganic nitrogen determined by caustic distillation. Using this method, the proportion of the bacterial population attached to solids during continuous culture leaching of a zinc sulfide concentrate has been found to be 65%.