Bioleaching of flotation by-products of talc production permits the separation of nickel and cobalt from iron and arsenic

CFD numerical simulation of particle suspension and hydromechanical stress in various designs of multi-stage bioleaching reactors

“…In such cases, bioleaching STR might be a technical alternative but is mostly too expensive except in very few cases when the metal value is high enough (e.g. such as in Uganda for the cobalt recovery in flotation tailings (Morin and d'Hugues, 2007) or in Finland for the valorization of nickel from talc mining residues (Wakeman et al, 2011;Neale et al, 2017)). The expansion of STR bioleaching requires thus further technical optimization to reach an economic viability.…”