Acidic mine drainage (AMD) is regarded as a pollutant and considered as potential source of valuable metals. With diminishing metal resources and ever-increasing demand on industry, recovering AMD metals is a sustainable initiative, despite facing major challenges. AMD refers to effluents draining from abandoned mines and mine wastes usually highly acidic that contain a variety of dissolved metals (Fe, Mn, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in much greater concentration than what is found in natural water bodies. There are numerous remediation treatments including chemical (lime treatment) or biological methods (aerobic wetlands and compost bioreactors) used for metal precipitation and removal from AMD. However, controlled biomineralization and selective recovering of metals using sulfidogenic bacteria are advantageous, reducing costs and environmental risks of sludge disposal. The increased understanding of the microbiology of acid-tolerant sulfidogenic bacteria will lead to the development of novel approaches to AMD treatment. We present and discuss several important recent approaches using low sulfidogenic bioreactors to both remediate and selectively recover metal sulfides from AMD. This work also highlights the efficiency and drawbacks of these types of treatments for metal recovery and points to future research for enhancing the use of novel acidophilic and acid-tolerant sulfidogenic microorganisms in AMD treatment.

A novel acidophilic member of the phylum Actinobacteria was isolated from an acidic, metal-contaminated stream draining from an abandoned underground coal mine (Trongol mine), situated close to Curanilahue, Biobío Region, Chile. The isolate (USS-CCA1^T) was demonstrated to be a heterotroph that catalysed under aerobic conditions the oxidation of ferrous iron and the reduction of ferric iron under anaerobic conditions, but not the oxidation of sulfur nor hydrogen. USS-CCA1^T is a Gram-positive, motile, short rod-shaped, mesophilic bacterium with a temperature growth optimum at 30 °C (range 20–39 °C). It was categorized as an extreme acidophile growing between 1.7 and 4.5 and optimally at pH 3.0. The G+C content of the chromosomal DNA of the isolate was 74.1 mol%, which is highly related to Aciditerrimonas ferrireducens IC-180^T , (the most closely related genus; 94.4 % 16S rRNA gene identity), and higher than other acidophilic actinobacteria. The isolate (USS-CCA1^T) was shown to form a distinct 16S rRNA clade from characterized acidophilic actinobacteria, well separated from the genera Acidimicrobium , Ferrimicrobium , Ferrithrix , ‘Acidithrix’ and Aciditerrimonas . Genomic indexes (ANIb, DDH, AAI, POCP) derived from the USS-CCA1^T draft genome sequence (deposited at DDBJ/ENA/GenBank under the accession WJHE00000000) support assignment of the isolate to a new species and a new genus within the Acidimicrobiaceae family. Isolate USS-CCA1^T is the designated type strain of the novel species Acidiferrimicrobium australe (=DSM 106828^T,=RGM 2506^T).

The application of acidophilic sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) for the treatment of acidic mine water has been recently developed to integrate mine water remediation and selective biomineralization. The use of biogenic hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) produced from the dissimilatory reduction of sulfate to fabricate valuable products such as metallic sulfide nanoparticles has potential applications in green chemistry. Here we report on the operation of a low-pH sulfidogenic bioreactor, inoculated with an anaerobic sediment obtained from an acid river in northern Chile, to recover copper via the production of copper sulfide nanoparticles using biogenic H₂S. The laboratory-scale system was operated as a continuous flow mode for up to 100 days and the bioreactor pH was maintained by the automatic addition of a pH 2.2 influent liquor to compensate for protons consumed by biosulfidogenesis. The “clean” copper sulfide nanoparticles, produced in a two-step process using bacterially generated sulfide, were examined using transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, energy dispersive (X-ray) spectroscopy and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The results demonstrated a uniform nanoparticle size distribution with an average diameter of less than 50 nm. Overall, we demonstrated the production of biogenic H₂S using a system designed for the treatment of acid mine water that holds potential for large-scale abiotic synthesis of copper sulfide nanoparticles.

The use of sulfidogenic bioreactors is a biotechnology trend to recover valuable metals such as copper and zinc as sulfide biominerals from mine-impacted waters. In the present work, ZnS nanoparticles were produced using “green” H₂S gas generated by a sulfidogenic bioreactor. ZnS nanoparticles were physico-chemically characterized by UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, TEM, XRD and XPS. The experimental results showed spherical-like shape nanoparticles with principal zinc-blende crystalline structure, a semiconductor character with an optical band gap around 3.73 eV, and fluorescence emission in the UV-visible range. In addition, the photocatalytic activity on the degradation of organic dyes in water, as well as bactericidal properties against several bacterial strains, were studied. ZnS nanoparticles were able to degrade methylene blue and rhodamine in water under UV radiation, and also showed high antibacterial activity against different bacterial strains including Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. The results open the way to obtain valorous ZnS nanoparticles from the use of dissimilatory reduction of sulfate using a sulfidogenic bioreactor.