Abstract:
Nowadays, the enormous amount of e-waste has been generated and increasing every year. Gold is used in electronic components because of its excellent conducting property, a large amount of gold can be recovered from e-waste. Various methods for the recovery of gold from e-waste have been developed. Bioleaching is the alternative offering environmental friendly and comparatively low cost of recovery. In this study, cyanogenic bacteria strains Chromobacterium violaceum which is capable of synthesizing cyanide at about 60 mg/l was used in Luria Bertani Broth (LB). The experiment was carried out in an incubator shaker at 30 °C and pH 9 in LB medium with shaking speed 200 rpm. Pulp density was maintained at 0.5% by weight of Electronic Scrap Materials (ESM). Bioleaching was carried out in 1-step and 2-step bioleaching with Cu Treated ESM (0.21% Au, 3.67% Cu) and Cu Untreated ESM (0.22% Au, 33.6% Cu) for 7 days. The results showed that bioleaching from Treated ESM demonstrated higher recovery (13.62%) than the Untreated ESM. 2-step bioleaching from Treated ESM showed the highest recovery at 13.62% (1.43 mg/L). This is due to the fact that copper in ESM can retard bacterial growth and consume some cyanide generated, therefore inhibiting gold recovery. In order to improve the recovery, media addition in 2-step bioleaching to maintain cyanide concentration and bacterial population during leaching was experimented. The results revealed that gold recovery was increased to 30.28% (3.18 mg/L) due to substantial higher cyanide production and bacterial population.