Microbial Technology in Mineral Processing and Metal Extraction

Sunil Kumar Behera is a Post-Doctoral Researcer in the School of Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His research areas of interest include bio-mineral processing technology & microbial biotechnology. He graduated in biology from Berhampur University, India and completed his post graduate degree in Biotechnology from Utkal University. He has received junior research fellowship and Senior research fellowship from Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Govt. of India to pursue Doctoral studies in the field of mineral biotechnology at CSIR-Institute of Minerals & Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar, India. Dr. Behera has received PhD in Biotechnology from Utkal University in the year 2013 for his work titled "Microbial processing of chromite ores". He served as Post–Doctoral Researcher at Mineral Processing & Technology Research Center in the University of Johannesburg. Sehliselo Ndlovu is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her specialization is in extractive metallurgy, and in particular, mineral processing, hydrometallurgy, biohydrometallurgy and the treatment of industrial and mining effluent. She holds a Diploma of Imperial College (DIC) in Hydrometallurgy and a PhD in Minerals Engineering from Imperial College, London in the United Kingdom. She has over 12 years of experience in the Metallurgical Engineering field. She currently holds a Research Chair in Hydrometallurgy and Sustainable Development

• Microbial Leaching Process: Introduction to microbial leaching, biomolecular mechanism of microbial leaching process, microbial leaching of base metals, precious metals, radioactive metals, oxidative and reductive microbial leaching process, microbes-mineral interaction in microbial leaching process, Biocorrosion, biosorption and biofilm, biotechnology and genetic engineering in microbial leaching, industrialization of microbial leaching process, enzyme systems and enzyme kinetics of microbial leaching processes, genetic factors associated with microbial mineral processing. Microbial Mineral beneficiation: Microbial mineral flotation, microorganisms as mineral flotation reagents, microbial metabolites as frother, biocollector in mineral flotation, role of microbes and their metabolite in mineral surface modification. Future prospects of microbial mineral processing technology.