Bioleaching of copper from electronic waste using Acinetobacter sp. Cr B2 in a pulsed plate column operated in batch and sequential batch mode

The amount of metal content present in electronic waste (e-waste) such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) exceeds that present in rich minerals thus allowing the use of PCBs as artificial ores. The copper content in PCBs is 10-30 mass %, which is the highest among all the metallic elements. The recovery of copper from e-waste serves dual fold benefit of conservation of metal resources and overcoming environmental hazard due to e-waste accumulation. In the currently reported study, a pulsed plate bioreactor in which the inter-plate spaces were packed with e-waste material was effectively employed for bioleaching of copper from e-waste using Acinetobacter sp. Cr B2. Various factors such as inoculum size, e-waste loading, frequency and amplitude of pulsation that significantly affected the bioleaching efficiency were studied. Inoculum size of 9% (v/v), frequency of 0.2 s−1, amplitude of 6.5 cm and total e-waste loading of 40 g with 10 g/stage were found to provide maximum bioleaching of Cu. Around 23% of Cu bioleaching was achieved under these conditions by batch mode of operation. Increasing the number of sequential cycles of operation in sequential batch mode further improved the bioleaching efficiency, by overcoming the maximum copper solubility and growth limitations of the single batch operation. With five cycles of sequential batch operation around 63% leaching of Cu could be achieved. The bioleaching was found to be mediated both by the action of extracellular enzymes and metabolites. The study demonstrated the potential application of pulsed plate bioreactor for larger scale application of copper bioleaching from PCBs.