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.
In order to improve the bio-oxidation efficiency of Axi refractory gold concentrate, a two-step process including a high temperature chemical oxidation and a subsequent bio-oxidation, combined with p H control during the bio-oxidation step was used. The results revealed that the optimum mode was to maintain solution p H at 1.0-1.2 during the biological oxidation stage. Under this condition, the activity of mixed culture could be sustained and the formation of jarosite could be diminished, thus the oxidation efficiency was improved. The oxidation levels of iron and sulfur were improved by 12.50% and 15.49%, and the gold recovery was increased by 21.02%. Therefore, the two-step process combined with p H control is an effective method for oxidizing the biohydrometallurgical process of Axi gold concentrate, and it will have a broad prospect of application in dealing with complex refractory gold concentrate.
