Pretreatment of Refractory Gold Ore by a Moderate Thermophilic Consortium in Stirred Tank Reactor
WU Jun-zi ZENG Wei-min WANG Yu-guang ZHANG Li-juan WAN Li-li ZHOU Hong-bo
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University School of Mineral Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University
Abstract：A moderate thermophilic consortium was enriched from acid mine drainage and coal mine wastewater samples collected in China. After adaptation to gradually increased pulp density of arsenic-bearing refractory gold ore and concentration of arsenic by serial sub-culturing for about two years, its tolerance ability was up to 200 and 8 g/L, respectively. After that, the consortium was employed to treat arsenic-bearing refractory gold ore to evaluate its ability and potential for industrial application. The results indicated that the maximum cell density was 2′109 mL-1 (the 14th day) during the whole process and arsenic extraction rate reached up to 59.93% in 22 d. Microbial diversity monitored by restriction fragment length polymorphism suggested that the consortium mainly consisted of four species, Sulfobacillus sp., Acidithiobacillus caldus, Ferroplasma thermophilum and Pseudomonas sp.
2013, Vol. 13 
