Edy Sanwani

Recovery of Copper from Pyritic Copper Ores Using a Biosurfactant-Producing Mixotrophic Bacterium as Bioflotation Reagent

In an attempt to investigate the use of bacteria and their metabolites as bioflotation reagents for environmentally friendly mineral processing, laboratory cell flotation tests were carried out using copper sulfide ores bearing a high content of pyrite, which were mixed with a biosurfactant-producing mixotrophic bacterium as bioflotation reagents. The interaction of bacterial cells and their metabolic products with the sulfide ores resulted in the alteration of the surface chemistry of both ores and bacterial cells as evidenced by FTIR and SEM-EDS observations as well as surface tension and contact angle measurements. The change in the surface properties of the sulfide ores in turn enabled the bacterium to function as flotation bioregeants in the flotation of copper sulfide ores as a function of bacterial cell concentration, conditioning time, flotation time and pH. Overall, the bacterium and its metabolites as bioreagents yielded flotation recoveries which might be attributed to the multi-function of the bacterium as depressant, collector and frother. Thus, the bacteria tested in this study could potentially be used as flotation bioreagents, providing an alternative to conventional flotation reagents.

Implementation of reverse flotation method to reduce reactive and non-reactive silica in bauxite ore from West Kalimantan

This paper reports a study that implements reverse flotation method to separate silica from West Kalimantan bauxite ores. The study is aimed to find the good process condition to obtain low-silica bauxite as the feed for the Bayer process. The experiments were carried out in a 1 L of flotation cell tank. Dodecylamine was used as the collector, starch as the depressant, and MIBC as the frother. The varied parameters were solid content to solution (15–30% w/w), and pH (6 – 10). The results of XRF of products show that in all reverse flotation experiments, the ratio of alumina to silica (Al/Si) are increased from 7 up to 14. The increase of solid percentage in the flotation gives a good result for Al/Si ratio as well as alumina and silica recovery in concentrate, with 30% w/w solid percentage to solution increases Al/Si ratio to 14.38, with silica recovery of 20%. The good separation with variation of depressants is obtained with depressant concentration of 400 g/ton bauxite, with Al/Si ratio in concentrate ...

Kinetic study of ferronickel slag grinding at variation of ball filling and ratio of feed to grinding balls

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of ball filling and ratio of feed to grinding balls on the kinetic of grinding of ferronickel slag in a laboratory scale ball mill. The experiments were started by crushing the ferronickel slag samples using a roll crusher to produce −3 mesh (−6.7 mm) product. This product, after sampling and sample dividing processes, was then used as feed for grinding process. The grinding was performed with variations of ball filling and ratio of feed to grinding balls for 150 minutes. At every certain time interval, particle size analysis was carried out on the grinding product. The results of the experiments were also used to develop linear regression model of the effect of grinding variables on the P80 of the product. Based on this study, it was shown that P80 values of the grinding products declined sharply until 70 minutes of grinding time due to the dominant mechanism of impact breakage and then decreased slowly after 70 minutes until 150 minutes of grindin...

Isolation and phylogenetic characterization of iron-sulfur-oxidizing heterotrophic bacteria indigenous to nickel laterite ores of Sulawesi, Indonesia: Implications for biohydrometallurgy

The main objective of this study was to isolate and phylogenetically identify the indigenous iron-sulfur-oxidizing heterotrophic bacteria capable of bioleaching nickel from laterite mineral ores. The bacteria were isolated from a nickel laterite mine area in South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. Seven bacterial strains were successfully isolated from laterite mineral ores (strains SKC/S-1 to SKC/S-7) and they were capable of bioleaching of nickel from saprolite and limonite ores. Using EzTaxon-e database, the 16S rRNA gene sequences of the seven bacterial strains were subjected to phylogenetic analysis, resulting in a complete hierarchical classification system, and they were identified as Pseudomonas taiwanensis BCRC 17751 (98.59% similarity), Bacillus subtilis subsp. inaquosorum BGSC 3A28 (99.14% and 99.32% similarities), Paenibacillus pasadenensis SAFN-007 (98.95% and 99.33% similarities), Bacillus methylotrophicus CBMB 205 (99.37% similarity), and Bacillus altitudinis 41KF2b (99.37% similarity). It is n...