Recovery of Nickel and Cobalt from Laterite Tailings by Reductive Dissolution under Aerobic Conditions Using Acidithiobacillus Species
Recovery of Nickel and Cobalt from Laterite Tailings by Reductive Dissolution under Aerobic Conditions Using Acidithiobacillus Species
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DOI：
10.1021/acs.est.5b00944
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发表时间：
2015-06-02
影响因子：
11.4
通讯作者：
Schippers, A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Marrero, J.;Coto, O.;Schippers, A.
硫化矿的生物采矿已经应用了近五十年。然而，氧化矿石如红土的生物处理在商业上落后。近年来，铁氧化还原法被提出用于处理褐铁矿红土矿，其厌氧还原溶解（AnRD）比真菌和其他细菌的好氧生物浸出更有效。我们在这里表明，三价铁还原介导的嗜酸氧化硫硫杆菌可以应用于镍红土尾矿的好氧还原溶解（AeRD）。使用嗜酸氧化硫硫杆菌和嗜酸氧化亚铁硫杆菌的聚生体的AeRD仅在7天内提取与使用嗜酸氧化亚铁硫杆菌的AnRD相似量的镍（53-57%）和钴（55-60%）。AeRD处理红土尾矿的经济和环境优势包括不需要缺氧气氛，酸消耗量比AnRD少1.8倍，以及在铁基富浸出液（PLS）中回收镍和钴，促进随后的金属回收。此外，提出了一个好氧酸再生阶段。因此，AeRD工艺开发可以被认为是环境友好的，用于处理红土，具有低运营成本，并且是AnRD的有吸引力的替代方案。
Biomining of sulfidic ores has been applied for almost five decades. However, the bioprocessing of oxide ores such as laterites lags commercially behind. Recently, the Ferredox process was proposed to treat limonitic laterite ores by means of anaerobic reductive dissolution (AnRD), which was found to be more effective than aerobic bioleaching by fungi and other bacteria. We show here that the ferric iron reduction mediated by Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans can be applied to an aerobic reductive dissolution (AeRD) of nickel laterite tailings. AeRD using a consortium of Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans and Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans extracted similar amounts of nickel (53-57%) and cobalt (55-60%) in only 7 days as AnRD using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. The economic and environmental advantages of AeRD for processing of laterite tailings comprise no requirement for an anoxic atmosphere, 1.8-fold less acid consumption than for AnRD, as well as nickel and cobalt recovered in a ferrous-based pregnant leach solution (PLS), facilitating the subsequent metal recovery. In addition, an aerobic acid regeneration stage is proposed. Therefore, AeRD process development can be considered as environmentally friendly for treating laterites with low operational costs and as an attractive alternative to AnRD.