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Processing of Bio-ore to Products

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Agromining: Farming for Metals

Part of the book series: Mineral Resource Reviews ((MIRERE))

Abstract

Hyperaccumulator plants may contain valuable metals at concentrations comparable to those of conventional metal ore and can be significantly upgraded by incineration. There is an incentive to recover these metals as products to partially counter-balance the cost of disposing the contaminated biomass from contaminated soils, mine tailings, and processing wastes. Metal recovery is included in the agromining chain, which has been developed over the past two decades for Ni and Au. More than 450 Ni-hyperaccumulator species are currently known and some grow quickly providing a high farming yield. Nickel recovery involves an extraction step, ashing and/or leaching of the dry biomass, followed by a refining step using pyro- or hydrometallurgy. The final products are ferronickel, Ni metal, Ni salts or Ni catalysts, all being widely used in various industrial sectors and in everyday life. Gold can be recovered from mine tailings using a number of plant species, typically aided by a timed addition of an Au-chelating extractant to the soil. Dry biomass is ashed and smelted. This approach enables the treatment of resources that could not be effectively processed using conventional methods. In addition to nickel and gold, the recovery of other metals or elements (e.g. Cd, Zn, Mn, REEs) has been investigated. Further effort is required to improve process efficiency and to discover new options tailored to the unique characteristics of hyperaccumulator plant biomass.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge and thank the many researchers who have contributed to knowledge in processing of agromined bio-ore. We also acknowledge financers, especially Institut Carnot ICEEL, BPI France, the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Agromine project www.agromine.org), and EU (FACCE–Surplus project Agronickel and Life Project Life-Agromine).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, UMR 7274, Université de Lorraine - CNRS, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Marie-Odile Simonnot & Baptiste Laubie

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    James Vaughan

Authors
  1. Marie-Odile Simonnot
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  2. James Vaughan
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  3. Baptiste Laubie
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Correspondence to Marie-Odile Simonnot .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Sols et Environnement, UMR 1120, Université de Lorraine-INRA, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Antony Van der Ent

  2. Laboratoire Sols et Environnement, UMR 1120, Université de Lorraine-INRA, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Guillaume Echevarria

  3. School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Alan J.M. Baker

  4. Laboratoire Sols et Environnement, UMR 1120, Université de Lorraine-INRA, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Jean Louis Morel

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Simonnot, MO., Vaughan, J., Laubie, B. (2018). Processing of Bio-ore to Products. In: Van der Ent, A., Echevarria, G., Baker, A., Morel, J. (eds) Agromining: Farming for Metals. Mineral Resource Reviews. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61899-9_3

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