Scientists based at the University of Edinburgh have developed 18 matchbox-sized prototypes, called
biomining reactors, to test how low gravity affects the ability of bacteria to extract materials such as iron, calcium and magnesium from space rocks.
Biomining microbes used in bioleaching processes are mostly acidophilic, autotrophic and chemotrophic bacterial isolates that occur naturally in sulfide minerals.
These bacteria are also used as catalysts in the
biomining process.
Booked for the event are an eclectic mix of presenters from industry and academia, including First Cobalt president Trent Meli, Polymet Labs president and local prospector Gino Chitaroni, Laurentian University
biomining and bioremediation expert Nadia Mykytczuk, environmental consultant Maria Story, and Goldcorp's vice-president of government affairs and energy, John Mullally.
Stanley also reveals how Prof Barrie Johnson of Bangor University has considered
biomining and sequential electrowinning for Parys Mountain, a huge open cast copper mine on Anglesey, which is unique to the UK in scale and metal loading discharge.
Acid mine drainage (AMD) and acid rock drainage (ARD) are the major environmental problems caused by
biomining. Diverse biotic and abiotic strategies have been developed to treat AMD [1].
The twenty contributions selected as the main body of the text cover a wide variety of subjects, including
biomining of base metals from sulphide minerals, microbial extraction of uranium from ores, spectroscopic study on the bioleaching of enargite using thermophile, and many others.
They use the energy stored through such oxidation to create biomass and, in addition, convert insoluble metals in ore into soluble forms that can be extracted more easily, a form of "
biomining" (Newman, 2010).