Presidential Address by the Managing Director of Urnamium Corporation of India

Abstract

I thank you for giving me this opportunity to join you today at this first joint effort in this country to have a look on the possibilities of extraction of metals by bacterial leaching. The rapid depletion of world mineral resources together with the rising demands for metals, requires the development of new processes to recover greater amount of mettls from progressively lower grade resources. On the other hand, the need for production of metals with as little pollution of environment as possible is also assuming great importance. Both these requirements have focussed attention on chemical mining as an area capable of providing new processes or refinements to existing ones. These new techniques could result in increased production of metals from resources now considered uneconomical to process by current technology, as also provide means for controlling pollution. Chemical mining requires the interaction of such disciplines as hydrometallurgy, microbiology, chemistry, fluid flow, mineralogy, geology and economics. One area not yet fully understood, but which is one of the most essential part of any chemical mining process is microbiology, that is the role of microorganisms in altering minerals and bringing metals in solution.