High efficient mixed culture screening and selected microbial community shift for bioleaching process

To screen the high efficient mixed culture and understand the bioleaching behaviors of mixed culture for low-grade copper sulfide ore bioleaching, ten mixed cultures were collected and screened from different acid mine drainages obtained from sulfide mines of China. The leaching rate was set as criterion to screen the mixed culture and the metagenomic approach. Community genome array (CGA) was used for analyzing the mixed culture microbial community shift during the bioleaching process. The results indicate that the mixed culture obtained from Yinshan(YS) lead-zinc mine in Dexing of Jiangxi province in China reaches the maximum copper extraction (68.89%) during the one bioleaching period of 24 d. CGA results show that YS culture contains nine kinds of bacteria which are belong to six divisions, and the microbial community structure is changing during the bioleaching process. This provides a good way to accelerate the bioleaching process and reveals the microbial community shift during the bioleaching process.