Improvement Trail on Recovery of Cadmium from Low-Grade Sulfide Ore Through Bioleaching Using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans

Recovery of cadmium from its low-grade sulfide ore (synthetic solutions) adopting bioleaching process involving the microbe, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans , under aerobic conditions is taken up. Leaching rate of cadmium from the ore solutions is examined at various initial loadings of ore solutions, bacterial densities and different pH units and at various temperatures. Bioleaching of cadmium was found to increase with an increase in time as well as solid loading but decrease with an increase in bacterial loading as well pH. However, in the case of temperatures, an initial increase followed by subsequent decrease was observed with rise in the parameter. Best conditions for bioleaching of cadmium employing A. ferrooxidans were deciphered to be a solid loading of at least 5 g at a microbial density of 5% at 30 °C temperature and 1.2 units of pH.