Biological treatment of mine-impacted waters on the context of metal recovery

Over the last century, mine-impacted waters have posed great risk to the environment due to their leakage and unrecovered toxic metals. This chapter reviews the various biological techniques in the treatment of mining and metallurgical wastewater to remove or recover metals (e.g., biological sulfate reduction, biosorption, enzymatic reductive precipitation), with emphasis on the metal-microbial interaction, the diverse organisms that have been used, and the factors that have affected their performance, including process design, reactor configuration, and operational conditions. The characteristics of the metal precipitates collected from the biological systems are discussed, as well as the affecting factors. Finally, future research that is needed to advance the investigation and application of these biological techniques are proposed.