The invention provides an assay for identifying a bacterium capable of binding elemental heavy metal, comprising the following steps: cultivating a test bacterium in a suitable first culture medium; immersing at least a surface portion of a test tool into the first culture medium for a second predetermined period of time, said surface portion being coated by elemental heavy metal, respectively; removing said test tool from said first culture medium and optionally rinsing the test tool; contacting a second culture medium with the surface portion coated by elemental heavy metal of said test tool removed in the previous step; and identifying the test bacterium as being capable of binding elemental heavy metal from growth of the test bacterium in said second culture medium.

The invention provides an assay for identifying a bacterium capable of binding elemental heavy metal, comprising the following steps: cultivating a test bacterium in a suitable first culture medium; immersing at least a surface portion of a test too! into the first culture medium for a second predetermined period of time, said surface portion being coated by elemental heavy metal, respectively; removing said test tool from said first culture medium and optionally rinsing the test tool; contacting a second culture medium with the surface portion coated by elemental heavy metal of said test tool removed in the previous step; and identifying the test bacterium as being capable of binding elemental heavy metal from growth of the test bacterium in said second culture medium.

An apparatus for the recovery of gold from a gold-bearing aqueous filtrate, the process comprising the steps of: (A) Contacting the aqueous filtrate with dibutyl carbitol (DBC) in a two-stage solvent extraction process to remove the gold from the aqueous filtrate into the DBC to form a gold-loaded DBC; and (D) Contacting the gold-loaded DBC with an aqueous acid scrub of hydrochloric acid in a four-stage countercurrent scrub process to remove impurities, e.g., non-gold metal, from the DBC into the aqueous scrub solution to form an impurity-loaded aqueous scrub.

Each stage of the solvent extraction circuit and the aqueous acid scrub circuit is equipped with a mixing assembly and a phase separation tank in a head-tail arrangement such that the mixing assembly of one stage is adjacent to the phase separation tank of the adjacent stage.

THIS invention relates to a process for the enhanced recovery of chromite and platinum group metals (PGMs) from a mixed chromite/PGM ore. Ore is ground 12, classified 14, to produce a coarse fraction and a fine fraction 36. The coarse fraction is subjected to gravity separation 16 and coarse particle flotation 20 to obtain a chrome concentrate and a PGM concentrate. The fine fraction 36 and PGM concentrate are ground 28, and subjected to conventional flotation 30 to obtain a PGM concentrate product 32. The benefits of this novel configuration of gravity concentration and coarse flotation technologies, as applied to both chromite and PGM recovery, are higher recoveries of chromite in a saleable concentrate, higher recoveries of PGMs and base metals, and lower chromite content in the PGM concentrate.

The present disclosure relates to hydrometallurgical methods for the isolation and recovery of platinum from rhenium-containing materials, and more particularly, from superalloys containing rhenium, platinum, and other metals. The disclosure also relates to apparatuses capable of carrying out the hydrometallurgical methods and the product streams generated from the methods and apparatuses.

A method for recovering metals includes mixing AC5 with a first solution comprising at least one metal ion to produce an AC5-metal ion complex. The method includes separating the AC5-metal ion complex from a second solution. The method further includes regenerating AC5 by dissociating the at least one metal ion from the AC5-metal ion complex. AC5 is a tris-benzo-15-crown-5 compound.

The present disclosure relates to hydrometallurgical methods for the isolation and recovery of platinum from rhenium-containing materials, and more particularly, from superalloys containing rhenium, platinum, and other metals. The disclosure also relates to apparatuses capable of carrying out the hydrometallurgical methods and the product streams generated from the methods and apparatuses.

The present invention provides a method of separating precious metals from anode sludge obtained from copper electrolysis, comprising (a) leaching the anode sludge in an aqueous sulfuric acid solution to remove leachable chlorides and to obtain a first leaching residue depleted of chlorides; (b) pressure leaching the first leaching residue to dissolve Ag and Se and to obtain a first filtrate comprising Ag and Se and a second leaching residue depleted of Ag and Se; and (c) leaching the second leaching residue with an aqueous hydrochloric acid solution to dissolve Au and PGMs to obtain a second filtrate comprising Au and PGMs and a final leaching residue.

Hydrometallurgical methods are described for the isolation and recovery of platinum from rhenium-containing materials, and more particularly, from superalloys containing rhenium, platinum, and other metals. In addition, apparatuses capable of carrying out the hydrometallurgical methods and the product streams generated from the methods and apparatuses are described.

The present invention provides a process for extracting noble metals from anode slime, comprising: mixing sodium carbonate, quartz and coke powder and impurity-removed anode slime, and subjecting the mixture to smelting and converting to obtain alloys of noble metals. The present invention avoids problem of lead pollution by using metallic bismuth to collect noble metals; meanwhile, metallic bismuth has low melting point, high specific gravity, and formation heat of bismuth oxide of 45.6 kcal/g atomic oxygen, thus it is easy to be reduced and the reduction temperature is low, which are beneficial for saving energy consumption and reduction time; the much smaller amounts of copper, nickel, antimony and arsenic entering noble bismuth in a slightly reductive smelting atmosphere than those entering noble lead make the converting of noble bismuth become simple, thereby decreasing smelting time and increasing the direct recovery rate of noble metals in anode slime.