Isolation and identification of moderately thermophilic acidophilic iron-oxidizing bacterium and its bioleaching characterization

A moderately thermophilic acidophilic iron-oxidizing bacterium ZW-1 was isolated from Dexing mine, Jiangxi Province, China. The morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics, 16S rRNA sequence and bioleaching characterization of strain ZW-1 were studied. The optimum growth temperature is 48 °C, and the optimum initial pH is 1.9. The strain can grow autotrophically by using ferrous iron or elemental sulfur as sole energy sources. The strain is also able to grow heterotrophically by using peptone and yeast extract powder, but not glucose. The cell density of strain ZW-1 can reach up to 1.02h108/mL with addition of 0.4 g/L peptone. A phylogenetic tree was constructed by comparing with the published 16S rRNA sequences of the relative bacteria species. In the phylogenetic tree, strain ZW-1 is closely relative to Sulfobacilus acidophilus with more than 99% sequence similarity. The results of bioleaching experiments indicate that the strain could oxidize Fe2+ efficiently, and the maximum oxidizing rate is 0.295 g/(L·h). It could tolerate high concentration of Fe3+ and Cu2+ (35 g/L and 25 g/L, respectively). After 20 d, 44.6% of copper is extracted from chalcopyrite by using strain ZW-1 as inocula.