Ecological mining: biological leaching and biological adsorption process precious metal cyanide insert

摘要

The present invention relates to a cyanide-free process of isolating precious metal gold from a particulate material containing said metal, comprising the following steps of (i) preparing an aqueous mixture containing said particulate material and biomass comprising having an S-LAYER or archaea having an S-LAYER; eubacteria and archaea, algae, and fungi; said biomass being capable of adsorbing said metal; (ii) incubating said aqueous mixture of step (i) for allowing binding of said metal to said biomass; (iii) separating the biomass having bound metal from the aqueous mixture of step (ii); and (iv) isolating the metal from said biomass separated in step (iii).