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."

Comments

Gold, silver, etc.?

[justanyone]

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

Re:Gold, silver, etc.?

[Kevin Burtch]

Actually, yes.

Note to self...

[FFFish]

...sell all copper mining stocks Monday morning.

This is Not New: Lots of Bacteria do this

[Salis]

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

Dont infect my computer

[samjam]

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

Re:Cool

[ColaMan]

Hey , maybe you should drop the researchers a note about that. I'm sure they haven't thought of that yet.

Thank You Captain Obvious ;-)

It doesn't eat copper, it just accumulates it

[Chemisor]

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.

Think bigger

[LuckyStarr]

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... :)

Error in story

[barakn]

meckardt writes "Using biological processes to retrieve metals from a subtrate has been at best a topic of science fiction."

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).