Recovery of copper values from bio-heap leaching of low grade Malanjkhand chalcopyrite ore

Lala Behari Sukla,Kailash Chandra Nathsarma,Joystna Rani Mahanta,Sradhanjali Singh,Snehasis Behera,Karanam Srinivas Rao,Tondepu Subbaiah,Barada Kanta Mishra 한국화학공학회 2009 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.26 No.6

M/S Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL), India generates large amounts of lean sulfide ores of copper. The current production of lean copper ores in India is 0.55 million tons with ~0.3% average copper content. Heap-bioleaching of the lean copper ores in 15 and 30 ton scales was undertaken at IMMT, Bhubaneswar. The leaching study showed 0.09% dissolution of copper from the ore body per day. The leach liquor was processed through solvent extraction and electrowinning. Extraction of copper from the actual leach liquor was carried out with 1.5% LIX 622N in kerosene with zero co-extraction of iron. The copper-free raffinate was fed back to the leaching unit. Stripping of copper from the loaded organic was carried out with 180 kg/㎥ H2SO4. The copper pregnant electrolyte was passed through a carbon column to make it free from entrained organic and was fed to the electrowinning unit. The increase in current efficiency was due to the increase in the concentration of electrolyte. The energy consumption was 1.7 kWh/kg at a flow rate of 4.5 L/h. Smooth and bright sheets of copper of 99.99% purity were obtained.

Recovery of nickel from chromite overburden, Sukinda using Aspergillus niger supplemented with manganese

Lala Behari Sukla,Sunil Kumar Behera,Prangya Parimita Panda,Sandeep Kumar Saini,Nilotpala Pradhan,Barada Kanta Mishra 한국화학공학회 2013 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.30 No.2

Oxalic acid is a prominent metabolite secreted by several fungi under specific conditions, which acts as a metal chelating agent. Amongst different fungal species, Aspergillus niger is favored as the best option for microbial production of oxalic acid. The present study deals with the oxalic acid over production by A. niger in response to manganese supplement to its growth medium, which in turn improves the recovery of nickel from pre-treated chromite overburden(COB) during fungal bioleaching. The metabolic pathway in oxalate bio-synthesis by A. niger involves one prominent cytoplasmic enzyme oxaloacetate acetylhydrolase (OAH), which catalyzes the breakdown of oxaloacetate metabolic intermediate to oxalate and acetate. Oxalic acid production was increased due to supplement of manganese to the culture medium of the A. niger. Manganese acts as cofactor for OAH enzyme; further, it enhances the catalytic activity of OAH to produce more oxalate. With oxalic acid production by A. niger, nickel recovery from pre-treated COB was improved. During the study, a maximum of nickel recovery was achieved up to 38.6% from pre-treated COB by adding 80 ppm of manganese to the culture media, whereas 24.0% of nickel was recovered without supplement of manganese (experiments were performed at 30 oC and the COB pulp density 2% w/v).

Bio-hydrometallurgical processing of low grade chalcopyrite for the recovery of copper metal

Sandeep Panda,Lala Behari Sukla,Chinmaya Kumar Sarangi,Nilotpala Pradhan,Tondepu Subbaiah,Barada Kanta Mishra,Gur Lal Bhatoa,Mullukutlashivram Prasad,Subrat Kumar Ray 한국화학공학회 2012 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.29 No.6

A process flowsheet was developed to recover copper metal from the lean sulfide ore of copper available at Malanjkhand, Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL), India. Copper pregnant leach solution (PLS) obtained from bio-heap leaching of chalcopyrite containing 0.3% copper was purified through solvent extraction (SX) and the copper recovered by electrowinning (EW). The copper-free raffinate obtained from SX stripping unit was returned back to the bioleaching circuit. The purity of the electrolytic copper produced at pilot scale was found to be 99.96%. During electrowinning,the effect of flow rate of electrolyte on current efficiency and energy consumption was also studied.

Fe (III) reduction strategies of dissimilatory iron reducing bacteria

Jacintha Esther,Lala Behari Sukla,Nilotpala Pradhan,Sandeep Panda 한국화학공학회 2015 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.32 No.1

Advances in applied and industrial microbial biotechnology have opened up many new avenues for appli-cation of several microorganisms. A group of certain metal reducers such as the dissimilatory iron reducing microor-ganisms possess an inherent potential to reduce oxidized metals under strict anaerobic/facultative anaerobic condition,thereby opening possibilities to combat environmental pollution. This unique property has invited researchers towardsunderstanding the metabolic regulatory pathways that enables the microbes to thrive under extreme environmentalconditions. Currently, dissimilatory iron reducing bacteria (DIRB) is in the focus of researchers to elucidate the specificmechanisms responsible for microbial metal reduction. The recent advances towards understanding the metabolism ofiron reduction in Shewanella and Geobacter , the model DIRB has been covered in this review. It is believed that themetabolic insights into the Fe (III) reduction systems of the model DIRB; Shewanella and Geobacter (as discussed inthe review) can be a basis for metabolic engineering to provide improved practical applications. With the advancementof our existing knowledge on the metabolic processes of the model iron reducers, applications ranging from laboratoryto field scale practices can be carried out. DIRB has gained immense interest for its application in the field of bioreme-diation, electrobiosynthesis, and bioelectronics in this decade. It can therefore be anticipated that the forthcoming yearswill see more applications of microbial iron reducers based on the existing as well as advanced metabolic informationsavailable in open source literature.

Recent bioreduction of hexavalent chromium in wastewater treatment: A review

Debabrata Pradhan,Lala Behari Sukla,Matthew Sawyer,Pattanathu K.S.M. Rahman 한국공업화학회 2017 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.55 No.-

Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) in water is a proven carcinogen to different internal and external organs of the living organisms. There are different human activities incorporated to the anthropogenic sources in the environment enriching Cr(VI) of high concentration in the water system above the regulatory level. The physical, chemical and biological properties of chromium favour the dissolution in the water environment. This concerns the environmental researcher to tackle and mitigate. Chemical or biological techniques or a combination of the two have been used to remove Cr(VI) from polluted waters. Biological techniques include integrated bioremediation, such as the primary processes of direct bioreduction and biosorption, and secondary processes of microbial fuel cell, biostimulation, surface modified dry biomass and biochar adsorption, and engineered biofilm and cell free reductase. These techniques are used by a wide range of living organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, plant leaves, plant nuts and algae. This group of living organisms transform and remove Cr(VI) from water during the cellular metabolisms, extracellular activities, physical and chemical adsorptions on the cell surface, and photosynthesis. Variation of different physical, chemical and environmental parameters affecting the efficiency of the bioremediation process have impacted on the design of bioreactors. There has been a recent development of a microbial fuel cell which use the proximity of Cr(VI) reduction as a cathode half cell for the generation of renewable energy and simulation of its’ removal from water.

Selective recovery and intensification of Mn from spent LiMn2O4 using sulfuric acid as lixiviant and Na-D2EHPA as extractant

Mohanty Archita,Sukla Lala Behari,Nayak Sumitra,Devi Niharbala 한국자원공학회 2022 Geosystem engineering Vol.25 No.5

Despite the rising demand for lithium-ion batteries and their widespread acceptance, recycling and repurposing end-of-life lithium-ion battery materials is still a work in progress. This will help mitigate the dependence on raw materials and risks of shortage while promoting a circular economy. The present work addresses a hydrometallurgical process to recover Mn from spent LiMn2O4 using sulphuric acid as a lixiviant and Na-D2EHPA as extractant. Effects of various leaching parameters have been studied and the pregnant leach solution has been generated using 1 mol/L H2SO4 with 6% H2O2 at a pulp density of 10 g/L, maintaining the temperature at 30°C at 450 rpm for 1 hour which contained 2.52 g/L Mn and 0.545 g/L of Li. The PLS was subjected to separation using solvent extraction method taking 70% saponified di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) as extractant. The McCabe-Thiele plot suggested two theoretical stages at O:A ratio of 1:1 using 0.3 mol/L Na-D2EHPA with 99.94% extraction of Mn and 10.2% co-extraction of Li. The co-extracted lithium was removed by scrubbing with MnSO4 solution. The loaded organic containing 2.574 g/L Mn was stripped using 10% H2SO4 at two stages at O: A ratio of 1.5:1 and enriched the concentration of manganese 1.5 times in the stripped solution.

Environmental Microbiology and Engineering : Microalga Scenedesmus sp.: A Potential Low-Cost Green Machine for Silver Nanoparticle Synthesis

( Jaya Shree Jena ),( Nilotpala Pradhan ),( Rati Ranjan Nayak ),( Bishnu P Dash ),( Lala Behari Sukla ),( Prasanna K Panda ),( Barada K Mishra ) 한국미생물 · 생명공학회 2014 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.24 No.4

Bionanotechnology has revolutionized nanomaterial synthesis by providing a green synthetic platform using biological systems. Among such biological systems, microalgae have tremendous potential to take up metal ions and produce nanoparticles by a detoxification process. The present study explores the intracellular and extracellular biogenic syntheses of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) using the unicellular green microalga Scenedesmus sp. Biosynthesized SNPs were characterized by AAS, UV-Vis spectroscopy, TEM, XRD, FTIR, DLS, and TGA studies and finally checked for antibacterial activity. Intracellular nanoparticle biosynthesis was initiated by a high rate of Ag+ ion accumulation in the microalgal biomass and subsequent formation of spherical crystalline SNPs (average size, 15-20 nm) due to the biochemical reduction of Ag+ ions. The synthesized nanoparticles were intracellular, as confirmed by the UV-Vis spectra of the outside medium. Furthermore, extracellular synthesis using boiled extract showed the formation of well scattered, highly stable, spherical SNPs with an average size of 5-10 nm. The size and morphology of the nanoparticles were confirmed by TEM. The crystalline nature of the SNPs was evident from the diffraction peaks of XRD and bright circular ring pattern of SAED. FTIR and UV-Vis spectra showed that biomolecules, proteins and peptides, are mainly responsible for the formation and stabilization of SNPs. Furthermore, the synthesized nanoparticles exhibited high antimicrobial activity against pathogenic gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. Use of such a microalgal system provides a simple, cost-effective alternative template for the biosynthesis of nanomaterials in a large-scale system that could be of great use in biomedical applications.

Recovery of copper from a surface altered chalcopyrite contained ball mill spillage through bio-hydrometallurgical route

Sandeep Panda,Pradeep Chandra Rout,Chinmaya Kumar Sarangi,Srabani Mishra,Nilotpala Pradhan,Umaballav Mohapatra,Tondepu Subbaiah,Lala Behari Sukla,Barada Kanta Mishra 한국화학공학회 2014 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.31 No.3

Bioleaching studies for chalcopyrite contained ball mill spillages are very scarce in the literature. We developeda process flow sheet for the recovery of copper metal from surface activated (600 oC, 15 min) ball mill spillagethrough bio-hydrometallurgical processing route. Bioleaching of the activated sample using a mixed meso-acidophilicbacterial consortium predominantly A. ferrooxidans strains was found to be effective at a lixiviant flow rate of1.5 L/h, enabling a maximum 72.36% copper recovery in 20 days. Mineralogical as well as morphological changesover the sample surface were seen to trigger the bioleaching efficiency of meso-acidophiles, thereby contributing towardsan enhanced copper recovery from the ball mill spillage. The bio-leach liquor containing 1.84 g/L Cu was purified throughsolvent extraction using LIX 84I in kerosene prior to the recovery of copper metal by electrowinning. Purity of thecopper produced through this process was 99.99%.