Functional activity of microorganisms in mining and processing of copper-nickel ores in the Murmansk Region

Abstract

The quantitative indices and structure of the microbial community in flotation samples of sulfide copper-nickel ores at concentration plant of Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company have been determined. The smallest number of saprotrophic and oligotrophic bacteria has been observed in samples of ore and recycled water, which can be explained by the low temperature of samples and the lack of nutrients. It has been found out that the bacteria contained in the ore and recycling water flowing from the tailings increased their number during the flotation process due to coming of the organic compounds with the flotation reagents, aeration and increased temperature. Dominating strains have been isolated from recycled water and basic flotation products and classified as Pseudomonas. It has been shown that with an increase in the number of bacteria, the flotation time of copper-nickel ores increases. There is also a tendency to change the extraction of copper and nickel, which can be caused by both the increase in the flotation time for operations and the change in the number of bacteria in the circulating water. The thionic bacteria have been distinguished from the flow tailings of the Allarechensk deposit. The heap leaching experiments have proved the bacterial leaching to give good results on the ore samples passed through magnetic separation, having shown high content of the nickel and copper in filters. When leaching low-grade ore of the Nude Terrasa, the advantage of bacterial leaching use in comparison with the sulphuric-acid leaching only to copper has been revealed. The nickel content in the filtrates for bacterial leaching is 275 mg/l, and for sulfuric acid – 310 mg/l. The average copper content in the filtrates is 19 and 15 mg/l.

Keywords

• copper-nickel ore
• waste dump
• bacteria
• flotation
• heap leaching
• biotechnology