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- Morin, Dominique, et al.
(författare)
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BioMinE : integrated project for the development of biotechnology for metal-bearing materials in Europe
- 2006
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Ingår i: Hydrometallurgy. - : Elsevier. - 0304-386X .- 1879-1158. ; 83:1-4, s. 69-76
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biohydrometallurgy is the offspring of the unexpected union of biotechnology and metallurgy. From specific properties of some extreme biotopes, active principles of interactions between microbial metabolisms and minerals have been extracted to be used as efficient metallurgical processes.Many profitable industrial operations based on these bioprocesses have been running to recover copper, gold, uranium or cobalt for instance and many other applications have been designed.Europe was quite active in this area in the past, but currently the leadership is in South Africa, America and Australia.BioMinE (Biotechnology for Metal-bearing material In Europe) is a large integrated project launched with the support of the European Commission. It is aimed at stimulating synergies between the most relevant universities, research and industrial organisations to develop new concepts in this technical field that allow a better exploitation of the mineral resources in the future.The main technical subject is the investigation of the opportunities to apply bioleach processes to primary and secondary resources of metal-bearing materials. The second technical area of the project in terms of effort is the study of the recovery of metals from pregnant bioleach solution using biological reagents. All along the project duration, these investigations are focussed on the relevant resources in Europe screened according to an iterative process. The integration of the innovative pathways of processing will be evaluated up to the pilot scale whenever it is appropriate.The Consortium of BioMinE comprises 35 partners from industry (12 including 5 SMEs) research organisations (9) universities (14) and government (2). The participants are from 12 EU member states, from 1 candidate country (Romania), and from South Africa (INCO Country).The overall budget of the project is 17.9 million Euros, with a contribution from the European Commission of 11.6 million Euros. Started on November 1, 2004, the project will last 4 years.An overview of BioMinE in the general context of the biohydrometallurgy development is the subject of this presentation.
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| 2. |
- Morin, Dominique, et al.
(författare)
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Progress after three years of BioMinE-Research and Technological Development project for a global assessment of biohydrometallurgical processes applied to European non-ferrous metal resources
- 2008
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Ingår i: Hydrometallurgy. - : Elsevier. - 0304-386X .- 1879-1158. ; 94:1-4, s. 58-68
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BioMinE is an integrated project under the sixth framework programme of research supported by the European Commission, which started in November 2004 and will last until October 2008 (Ref. NMP2-CT-2005-500329). It is dedicated to the evaluation of biohydrometallurgy to improve the exploitation of the European non-ferrous metal resources in a sustainable way. At the end of 2007, the Consortium of BioMinE comprised 37 partners from industry (13 including 6 Small or Medium Enterprises), research organisations (8), universities (15), and government (1). The participants are from 13 EU member states and from Serbia and South Africa (INCO Countries). For more details see http://biomine.brgm.fr.The three main kinds of resources considered for bioleaching studies are:- Copper polymetallics (concentrates and tailings),- Zinc polymetallics (zinc and zinc polymetallic concentrates)- Secondary wastes (tailings, rock and metallurgical wastes, etc.)For each of these resources, amenability studies of application of bioleaching technologies by various approaches have been undertaken or still ongoing. Further processing assessment will be conducted up to the demonstration scale. Technological improvements have been made to apply bioleaching in the context of the European resources in terms of complexity and sustainability requirements. The relevant fundamental studies covering bio-prospecting, molecular ecology, biochemistry, and genetics areas aimed at improving the understanding and the control of the selected technologies have given original results.Much progress has also been obtained in the use of the microbial sulfate-reducing process to polish effluents and to recover metals from leachates containing low concentrations of metals. The finding of micro-organisms thriving at low and high temperature, respectively 8 and 65 °C, leads to an extension of the application range of the process. It has been also observed that this process could be pushed down to pH 4.5 and 4 creating opportunities of selective metal recovery as metal sulphides. It has also been demonstrated that sulphate can be removed at high concentrations, as well as arsenic or selenium. The next step in this work is pilot testing. This will allow to determine scale-up criteria and to assess the residual metal concentration under actual conditions.The pilot-scale demonstration operations, as well as the techno-economic and comparative sustainability assessments will be achieved during 2008, the last year of the project.The prototypes of the learning objects for training about biohydrometallurgy accessible by internet have been elaborated. A public output of this work is accessible at http://wiki.biomine.skelleftea.se/wiki. The basic knowledge thus delivered is aimed at disseminating the understanding of the origins and use of biohydrometallurgy.Contacts with mining operators in Europe have been taken and collaboration schemes have been established in various ways according to the respective contexts. When a high potential of technical involvement could be foreseen, a direct participation of the mining operators in the project was favoured, this led to integrate KGHM (Pol), Boliden (Sw) and Copper Institute of Bor (Serbia) into the consortium of partners.When no direct technical commitment was conceivable at the first stage, collaboration was established with companies with the most urgent requirement to have access to the relevant resource.
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