Stakeholder workshop of the BIOMIMIC project

Various stakeholders from industry, authorities and science accepted the invitation of G.E.O.S. to the stakeholder workshop of the BIOMIMIC project on 09.10.2020.

In the BIOMIMIC project, new biotechnological and (hydro) metallurgical processes have been developed using the natural process of microbial sulphate reduction (bioreduction), innovative reactors and new biosorbents (biosorption) to selectively concentrate, separate and recover valuable metals from diluted solutions.

 

The Workshop

After the presentation of the project results and other interesting information on the topic, the participants discussed how sustainable water management can be designed in Saxony in the future, taking into account new findings from research and technology development. In this context, various aspects have to be considered for the use of new procedures and innovative concepts:

• • Relativeness and costs of the processes (especially long-term costs)
  • General ability to obtain current permits
  • Land use
  • Potential risks for the public, nature and the environment

The results

Looking to the future, the methods of choice will probably be more cost-effective near-natural methods or methods that lead to a significant load reduction at certain contamination hot spots with relatively low risk and manageable costs. The biological process developed in BIOMIMIC by G.E.O.S. shows that reductive processes have potential for large-scale applications. They achieve the same purification effect compared to chemical processes, but additionally enable the removal of sulphates and sustainable recycling of metals into material cycles.

More information:
Dr. Susan Reichel, E-Mail: s.reichel@geosfreiberg.de
Projekt BIOMIMIC