Heavy Metals Leaching Experiment from the Pyritic Tailings by the T.F and T.T Bacterias

Abstract

The produced and extraction process of pyritic would generate a large amount of pyritic mineral processing solid waste. This kind of waste can lead to land occupation, and contaminate the local water, air and soil. Therefore, in this paper, Thiobacillus ferrooxidans and Thiobacillus thiooxidans are used to deal with the pyritic mineral processing solid waste. The particles, catalysts and bioleaching products between microorganism and pyritic mineral processing solid wast were studied. It is indicated that the microorganism growth and the heavy metals leaching efficiency involve biological and chemical interactions. The experimental results suggested that the T.t was best to bioleach the pyritic mineral processing solid waste, and the efficiency of T.f was worse than that of T.t. The leaching effect of mixed bacterias of T.t and T.f fell in between, the leaching rate would decrease when the pulp density increased. The micro-morphology of bacteria was observed by SEM detector, the single cellular dimension of bioleaching bactreia was about (1~2) μm × (0.2~0.5) μm.