Work stream two partners “Pre-treatment to remove uninteresting materials”
What if we found the perfect bacteria for the pre-treatment of critical raw materials? Our aim in BIORECOVER was to discover bacteria, from the natural population inhabiting mine residues, able to remove impurities preventing a good metal extraction from critical raw materials. After isolating and screening hundreds of bacteria during the first period of the project, in the second one, we focused on promising candidates and investigated in detail their mechanisms of action. We looked at how they are performing best in the lab, testing conditions like pH, temperature, or energy source. In parallel we examined their DNA to understand how they can resist such high concentration of metals and what they are producing to achieve impurities dissolution. Now that we have bacteria that are working really well in the lab, the next step is to combine all the produced data and determine how to integrate them into a feasible and reliable industrial process.
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