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Biohydrometallurgy "Biohydrometallurgy is an application in mining. In its natural state a metal such as copper is found combined with other elements in the mineral chalcopyrite. A bacterium is then used to form the compound copper sulphate (CuSO4), which in turn can be treated chemically to obtain pure copper. This microbiological mining process is used only with low-grade ores and currently accounts for 10% of copper production world-wide." Copper can be extracted from its ores by using bacteria. This is done by, firstly the low-grade copper ore and also the tailings (left from an earlier traditional mine) are stacked up where the ground has been made impermeable. The ground is then sprayed with the acidic leaching solution (T. ferro oxidans and T. Thio-oxidans). This solution is used because the bacteria used, thrive in acidic conditions and they also don't need any organic material on which to feed. The bacteria require Fe ions,...

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