There is considerable advances in process technology and equipment used in biomineral processing technology. Bioleaching is gaining importance as ore grades fall ,complexity of ores and metal prices rise.

Yes, I do agree that the application of microbiology has promising prospects in the area of heavy metal recovery and remediation. The terminology as we all know is "Bioleaching" for recovery of metal values from ores and other such wastes and "Bioremediation" for remediation of contaminated soils and/or water. A lot of research has been devoted to these areas and is slowly gaining momentum in the field of waste management.

I have been working in these areas for the last 5 years now and recent developments are coming up to put better insights that aims for commercialization of these process.

There is a huge potential to apply biological agents (bacteria, fungi) for the mobilization of metals from solids and subsequently recover and re-use them as secondary resources, in particular when treating solid metal-containing wastes. However, techniques known for decades from ore mining (e.g., copper, gold) have rarely been applied for waste treatment on an industrial scale and are still in its infancy. This potential is based on the wide range of microbial metabolic abilities. In my opinion, the main challenge is - therefore – the useful combination of the wide varieties of microbes, technical approaches, and metal-containing solid wastes resulting finally in an ecologically and economically relevant process.

The demand for bioleaching technology is increasing due to stricter enforcement of anti-pollution laws. Development and optimization for the recovery of precious metals from low-grade ores using bioleaching process is being considered worldwide.Several new commercial-scale bioleaching plants will be developed and installed for precious metals recovery with high extraction efficiency.

Biological recovery of metals using microbes indeed has a promising future due its eco-friendly aspects. Conventional methods pose problems of high capital investment, requirement of high-energy. They also cause hazardous pollution due to inefficient methods of waste disposal. Bioleaching overcomes these problems and has other numerous advantages.

The engineering design and operational control of sulfide heap bioleaching operations have developed to the point where the process are being applied for the treatment of primary copper sulfide ores.A lot of advances that have been made in areas such as agglomeration, heap inoculation, the judicious application of acid, forced aeration, irrigation management,strain development and in-heap measurement and control have enabled the generation and retention of the heat from the exothermic sulfide reactions taking place within heaps to be closely controlled.There has been considerable progress in recent years in optimising the design, operation and control of sulfide heap leaching operations, which have been aimed mainly at applying the process to primary chalcopyrite ores, are equally applicable to the leaching of secondary copper sulfides, and other base metal sulfides such as pentlandite.These progresses mean that considerably higher metal recoveries can now be attained, and leach cycle times can be significantly reduced. The inherently lower capital cost may enable the heap bioleaching to compete with flotation and concentrate production for the treatment of secondary sulfide resources.

In recent years, mineral bioprocessing has been applied at numerous locations world-wide for treating low grade ores in remote areas.

Combined ultrasonic and bioleaching treatment of hospital waste incinerator bottom ash with simultaneous extraction of selected metals is reported. The ash contained heavy metals such as Cu, Cr, Ni, Sn and Ti in the range of 0.51–21.74 (mg/kg). Extraction of metals from incinerated medical waste(MW) ash indicated that this ash may be a potential source of metals in the future.

http://10.1080/09593330.2013.824992

Biohydrometallurgy is a cross-disciplinary field of knowledge, where mainly microbiology meets mineral engineering, but other disciplines are involved also as

process and environmental engineering, geology, metallurgy, etc.. These bioprocesses will maximise the yield from primary raw material resources and minimise energy consumption, environmental effects from waste products and gas emissions and the overall contribution to the greenhouse effect.Many profitable industrial operations based on these bioprocesses have been running to recover copper, gold, uranium or cobalt for instance and many other applications have been designed

Check one of the top scientist in this field - Groudev, S.N.

http://www.scopus.com/results/results.url?sort=plf-f&src=s&sid=E21907F8AF8E556185661B34D61C1BF3.WlW7NKKC52nnQNxjqAQrlA%3a160&sot=aut&sdt=a&sl=17&s=AU-ID%286701490344%29&origin=AuthorProfile&reselectAuthorsLinkName=Groudev%2c+Stoyan+N.&txGid=E21907F8AF8E556185661B34D61C1BF3.WlW7NKKC52nnQNxjqAQrlA%3a16