Present and future of thermophilic bioleaching in developing countries

The growing of population and development contribute to the increasing demand of metals. Thus, the mining industries plays important role in supplying to this needs. However, the difficulties in the process of obtaining metal become constraints and many strive to improve the mining technology. One of the important aspect are the recovery and extraction of metal from its metal ore. In order to improve this process, a technique known as bioleaching is introduced. As diversity of the microorganism has been raising interest of engineers, researchers and scientists, the idea to make use of microorganism into mining technology became possible. Thus, the microbial hydrometallurgy and mineral processing (bio-hydrometallurgy) of metal sulphides is currently well established technology. Studies shows that the overall rate of bioleaching increases when the operating temperature increases. The increases in operating temperature result in increasing value of the rate of chemical oxidation, thus increase the rate of bioleaching. Hence, there is growing interest in operating at a higher temperature to achieved higher leach rates and lower operational cost. This lead to the used of thermophilic microorganism in the bioleaching process. This research project further investigate the present and future of thermophilic bioleaching in developing countries.