Logo image
Increasing cell concentration does not affect specific ferrous iron oxidation rate in a continuously stirred tank bioreactor
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Increasing cell concentration does not affect specific ferrous iron oxidation rate in a continuously stirred tank bioreactor

N.J. Boxall, K.Y. Cheng, C.A. du Plessis, D. Collinson, C. Morris, N. Streltsova, B. Seaman, D. Seaman, L. Vollert and A.H. Kaksonen
Hydrometallurgy, Vol.181, pp.189-194
2018
pdf
Increasing cell.pdfDownloadView
Author’s Version Open Access
url
Link to Published Version *Subscription may be requiredView

Abstract

Microbial oxidation of ferrous to ferric iron allows efficient oxidative processing of sulfide minerals under ambient conditions. This study determined the effect of cell concentration of a mixed mesophilic microbial culture on iron oxidation rate, and evaluated if there was a cell concentration threshold that dictates a maximal volumetric iron oxidation rate. A bioreactor with feedback-loading of ferrous media was operated at 30 °C to maintain a redox potential of +480 mV vs. Ag/AgCl at pH of 1.3. A positive and linear correlation (R = 0.955) between the cell concentration (6.8 × 107–7.1 × 109 cells mL−1) and volumetric biological iron oxidation (up to 6.9 g L−1 h−1) was observed. The specific iron oxidation was not affected by cell concentration, and no biocatalytic threshold was observed. This indicated that a high cell concentration can be used to achieve a high volumetric iron oxidation rate, enabling the use of a compact reactor size.

Details

Metrics

76 File views/ downloads
33 Record Views

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types
Industry collaboration
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Citation topics
7 Engineering & Materials Science
7.229 Mineral & Metal Processing
7.229.774 Bioleaching
Web Of Science research areas
Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
ESI research areas
Materials Science
Logo image