Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BiotaMet (A novel biotreatment technology for sustainable metal extraction from low-grade ores, tailings and WEEE)
Période du rapport: 2021-10-01 au 2023-09-30
Bioleaching, a method of metal separation utilizing microorganisms fits the bill by being non-polluting and having a low energy demand. While efficient in lab-scale, the issues with leaching speed, material specificity, cost-efficiency and upscaling have hampered its widespread industrial use. We aimed to address these issues by developing BiotaTec’s robust bioleaching method termed BiotaMet into industrially applicable solution.
The optimisation process of BiotaMet started at lab-scale with sequential step-by-step upscaling via 20L, 100L and 1000L state-of-the-art bioleaching reactors. For the economically most interesting metals in materials named above, leaching efficiency was improved to and above 80-90% with significant decrease in leaching time. Generation of methane from organic component in argillite was similarly upscaled to 1000L with simultaneous increase in efficiency of gas generation above what was ever achieved in a laboratory scale. The last aspects of metal leaching upscaling are currently undergoing additional modifications in 1the 000L reactor to increase resilience against possible contamination issues in industrial settings.