A new strain for recovering precious metals from waste printed circuit boards

A new strain, Pseudomonas Chlororaphis (PC), was found for dissolving gold, silver, and copper from the metallic particles of crushed waste printed circuit boards (PCBs). The optimized conditions that greatly improved the ability of producing CN− (for dissolving metals) were obtained. Dissolving experiments of pure gold, silver, and copper showed that the metals could be changed into Au+, Ag+, and Cu2+. PC cells and their secreta would adsorb metallic ions. Meanwhile, metallic ions destroyed the growth of PC. Dissolving experiments of metallic particles from crushed waste PCBs were performed by PC. The results indicated that 8.2% of the gold, 12.1% silver, and 52.3% copper were dissolved into solution. This paper contributed significance information to recovering precious metals from waste PCBs by bioleaching.