Biomining in reverse gear: Using bacteria to extract metals from ...
Introduction. Biomining has, over the past 50 years, emerged as an important area of biotechnology ( Brierley and Brierley, 2013, Johnson, 2013, Brierley, 2008 ). Within this time it has developed from minimallyengineered dump leaching of runofmine copper ore to computercontrolled bioreactors used mostly for preoxidising refractory gold ores.