Bacterial leaching of discarded copper ores from Yongping, China

The elementary and phase analysis of discarded copper ores from Yongping of China has been performed. The experiments of extracting copper from the discarded copper ores were done with the mixed bacteria obtained through a series of enrichment,separation, domestication and combination tests. The results show that in the process of bioleaching, the pH value rises at first and drops gradually. The E_h value keeps rising along with the time and the appropriate E_h value varying between 750 and 800 mV will benefit the bioleaching copper. The high concentration of ferric ions is detrimental to the bioleaching copper. The results of bioleaching copper are good. That is, the copper recovery is 31.8% after 27 days.