A Performance Study on the Bioleaching Process by the Production of Organic Acids Using HPLC/UV

Abstract

Electronic waste as it has various precious metals with it attracts all types of recyclers to recycle regardless to what happens to the environment. It has been so long that there is no standard operating procedure for the treatment of the electronic waste. Bioleaching which is still under lab study, being a nonhazardous treatment process among various treatment processes could be implemented in the extraction of metals from e-waste using various microbes. The bioleaching process involves various steps like acidolysis, complexolysis and redoxolysis. Among them, acidolysis is the first basic step of the bioleaching processes. This process is mediated by the organic acids synthesised by the microbes present in the bioleaching medium. The microbes produce various organic acids like oxalic acid, gluconic acid, citric acid and so on. These acids are important for the forthcoming process which would then coin into a metal pool. A study has been made to find out the production of organic acids by the microbes in the presence of different concentrations of electronic waste. It was also analysed that the pulp density affects the production of organic acids. The samples taken for analysis were taken from five different conical flasks with which the concentration of sample differs from 2 to 10 g/250 ml respectively. An HPLC analysis was done to find out the difference in the production of organic acids. Various peaks were noted for different organic acids and it was found that the size of the sample influences the production of organic acid.