Biometal Demonstration Plant for the Biological Rehabilitation of Metal Bearing-Wastewaters

Biotechnology Processes for Scalable, Selective Rare Earth Element Recovery

“…Hence, TBP was considered as a possible agent to retard removal of UO 2 2+ in the REE-accumulating column to enable later recovery of U(VI) downstream. In addition, while effective removal of UO 2 2 + from acidic minewater at the expense of glycerol 2-phosphate was achieved successfully [33] a barrier to industrial implementation remains the cost of G2P at scale [47]. This would impact adversely upon commercial REE recovery.…”

“…The use of TBP is shown to be of no benefit in the separation of REE and uranium, serving only to reduce metal recovery overall. Clearly an enzymatic route to metal recovery from real wastes may have limitations where metal separation is required, although this approach was highly effective in a uranium-only system [33,47] and in the separation of REE(III) and Th(IV) by the restriction of flow residence time (Figure 3).…”

“…The possibility to provide a uranium concentrate as a high value side stream would be important. Within a previous EU consortium project [47], the cost of the Serratia bio-recovery process was estimated as comparable to ion exchange in terms of capital outlay but operational cost (the need for G2P for continued metal synthesis) was limiting and TBP is concluded to have little potential for realistic substitution for G2P due to complexities of the bio-chemistry of its utilisation. A similar conclusion regarding alkyl phosphate utility was reported elsewhere (see [81]).…”

“…In contrast to the high current commodity value of REE, uranium was of little importance in 1990s when the uranium recovery study was done [33,47] (US$ 10/lb) but, with a global nuclear expansion, in response to concern about fossil fuel availability and the environmental consequences of CO 2 emissions, the economic and environmental impacts of a dual metal recovery become compelling.…”

“…dairy waste) and ammonium phosphate (e.g. fertiliser) [47]. In terms of metal recovered against 'biomass elemental building blocks' (C, N, S, P), at a metal loading of 5-10 times the bacterial dry weight (reported for bio-mineralisation within columns) the 'building blocks' would account for a small proportion of the total solid upon ashing for delivery into current pyroand hydro-metallurgies and bio-recovery represents a mechanism to convert large volumes of dilute metals into solid concentrates.…”