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Pyrite oxidation in column at controlled redox potential of 900 mV with and without bacteria

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Abstract

Comparisons on the bioleaching and sterile oxidation of pyrite were performed at controlled redox potential of 900 mV (vs. SHE) and different temperatures of 30 and 60 °C. For sterile experiments, the redox potential of irrigation solution was controlled by adding hydrogen peroxide solution (15 wt%), while the redox potential of irrigation solution for bioleaching was elevated by flowing through the packed bed in which bacteria were activated and colonized. The rate of pyrite bioleaching is faster than that of sterile oxidation at temperature of 30 °C. The reason is that the potential gradient of leaching solution in bioleaching column is much smaller than that in sterile column. The redox potentials of irrigation solution and leaching solution are similar for bioleaching; however, the redox potential difference of irrigation solution and leaching solution for sterile oxidation is about 150 mV. When temperature increases to 60 °C for sterile oxidation, the rate of pyrite leaching is faster than that of bioleaching at temperature of 30 °C, even though the redox potential gradient of leaching solution is great. The mineralogy analyses of pyrite residue were performed by scanning electron microscopy–energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. The results confirm that pyrite oxidation might only occur at specific sites with high surface energy on surface and obeys the “indirect mechanism” whether there are bacteria or not. The pyrite oxidation rate is not inhibited by inert sulfur on residue surface at elevated redox potential. According to the conclusions, the way to accelerate pyrite oxidation is proposed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Research Fund for Program of Efficient Gold Extraction from Refractory Gold Ore of Sichuan Province, China (No. 12120113088100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41401541 and 51474075) and the Bureau of International Co-operation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 122111KYSB20150013). The authors are grateful to Professor Miao Chen for XPS analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100190, China

    He-Yun Sun, Qiao-Yi Tan, Yan Jia & Ren-Man Ruan

  2. Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100190, China

    He-Yun Sun, Qiao-Yi Tan, Yan Jia & Ren-Man Ruan

  3. National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100190, China

    He-Yun Sun, Qiao-Yi Tan, Yan Jia & Ren-Man Ruan

  4. Institute of Multipurpose Utilization of Mineral Resources, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Rong-Bo Shu

  5. State Key Laboratory of Gold Extraction, Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd., Shanghang, 364200, China

    Shui-Ping Zhong

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  1. He-Yun Sun
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  2. Qiao-Yi Tan
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Correspondence to Ren-Man Ruan.

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Sun, HY., Tan, QY., Jia, Y. et al. Pyrite oxidation in column at controlled redox potential of 900 mV with and without bacteria. Rare Met. 41, 4279–4288 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-016-0844-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-016-0844-y

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