There are many processes / patents using bioleaching of sulphide ores or oxidized copper / gold, using both batteries as bioreactors, but this will depend on that? The percentage of precious metal law?
Money, always money. STR involves a great investment not only on the reactors but also in form of costs of power consumption and maintenance. Reactors are common processing gold but not that much with other metal. If you have low metal concentration you'll want to maximize benefits running a cheap process
Employing bacteria to recover metals from a range of sources remains a niche commercial activity in Europe but interest is clearly growing. Bioheap leaching requires space, whereas bioreactor-based techniques are somewhat sensitive to the ups and downs of metal prices. However, the larger the range of metals contained in a low-grade ore or process waste, the more viable are both approaches.
The existence of 'penalty' elements such as arsenic, bismuth and antimony can improve commercial viability. For instance, at Lubin, an active copper mining site in Poland that was examined within BioShale and BioMine, conventional smelting operations nearby have limited the attractiveness of biomining, but says Norris: 'This could change if any ores become available that contain enough toxic metals to make smelting less attractive.'In the case of remediation projects, BacTech's Paul Miller suggests that the intelligent way forward, particularly if the metals recovered are strategically important, would be for local and national governments to agree to step in to support a clean-up operation if metal prices dropped below a certain value.
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2010/15/mining-bug.cfm
As a experienced geomicrobiologist myself, I can tell you, that it not only depends on the elements present in the minerals, but also on other factors like the crystal lattice that changes from strata to strata in the mineral. If you are interested in studying the corrosion cells at the surface, it will vary from each exposed surface to surface.
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