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Researchers Isolate Copper- Extracting Bacteria
meckardt writes "Using biological processes to retrieve metals from a subtrate has been at best a topic of science fiction. However, in today's news a Japanese-Chilean research firm reported a breakthrough in developing new technology that uses bacteria to extract copper from poor quality mineral at a low cost."
Cool -- if this research can extend to other minerals, it could represent a great way to extend existing mineral resources and recycle some types of waste.
I don't suppose anyone is working on similar processes for Gold, Silver, and other precious metals?
Of course, having bacteria that handle any specific metals would be handy. As I remember, cadmium is used pretty heavily in chip fabs, and having a process to remediate it might be very nice for the environment near current and former fabs.
The important thing to me seems to be how the metals are accumulated. it does no good if a bacteria accumulates a metal if we cannot extract the bacteria from the water / substance afterwards...
-- Kevin J. Rice
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
you go, bacteria
...sell all copper mining stocks Monday morning.
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There's quite a few species of bacteria that like to uptake metals and oxidize them for energy. In addition to copper, one major application is the absorption of heavy metals, such as uranium/etc, from the soil by bacteria. The bacteria are then much easier to remove from the soil than the heavy metals they absorbed.
Salis
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One of the last things I want in relation to this is a load of bacteria eating the copper tracks off my motherboard, and speads down the LAN wiring to other PC's.
Gosh, just imagine if a power station gets infected.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
I for one welcome our new copper-eating...
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
It doesn't eat copper, it just accumulates it. This means that it can only absorb copper ions that are already dissolved, even if only in low concentration. If such bacteria got onto your motherboard, the effect would be cleansing, rather than destructive.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Newsflash : Copper Bacteria on the lose, more cities turned in to grey goo ...
Go grab those torrents.
This could be THE chance for bootstrapping an industry on extraterrestrial objects like the moon or the asteroids.
:)
First isolate bacteria for extraction of other elements. If you have enough diversity take a small craft filled with bacteria and their life-support system which certainly isnt as big as one for humans. Then land the craft on the object and start mining and sorting out the elements.
Later send crafts to pick up that elements and produce something out of it. Perhaps first a larger scale mining operation, or a larger scale production facility.
Then construct all the other stuff. Dreaming...
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
Commercial production will begin by 2007, according to Codelco.
Of course it's modest. Pilot plants aren't supposed to produce commercial levels of output. A pilot plant is basically a sanity check, where you find the mistakes and hidden problems in a new process before spending the cash to build a full-scale plant.
Plus, it's a bit strange to compare a single plant--pilot or production--to the output of an entire country.
I seem to remember an invention about a hundred or so years ago. It didn't put out as much light as the current gaslight technology, required a completely new , expensive, system to support it. But I guess the lightbulb worked out pretty well.
Bacteria have been used in the copper and iron mining industries for a long time, especially for the sulfide ores. There's a diagram in the 6th edition (1991) of Biology of Microorganisms by Brock and Madigan, p. 650, of the microbial leaching of copper sulfide minerals. Water containing a ferric sulfate solution is dribbled over a pile of copper sulfide ore. Using oxygen or ferric iron and water, bacteria oxidize the copper into the soluble Cu2+, with ferrous iron, water and sulfate as byproducts. The water moves to a non-biological stage where the Cu2+ is reduced to metal by reacting with iron scrap metal. The iron is oxidized to the soluble ferrous form. In the last stage, another microbe, Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, oxidizes the ferrous ions to ferric ions, and the ferric sulfate solution is pumped back to the top of the hill (occasionally sulfuric acid is added).
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
This process is designed to after the leftovers--the ore that isn't worth processing with the current technology. The company has already sunk a set amount of money into each mine for such things as buying the land and setting up the infrastructure; so even if this new process isn't all that productive it can still be cost effective.
This is what the villians in Superman need, some Kriptonite producing bacteria.
-Rights? What rights?
Can this be extended to medicine in cases where intoxication and long term effects with heavy metals(silicon, zinc, lead) present in tap water eventually can be reversed by leeching(yes like the hacker in Speed 2) with some bacteria?. After all to get rid of the bacteria u only need antibiotics...
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."