Bacterial destruction of mica during bioleaching of kaolin and quartz sand by Bacillus cereus
Growth and metabolic activities of Bacillus cereus were found to cause the extraction of iron atoms from the octahedral position in mica in the kaolin sample (49%) and in the quartz sands sample (17%) after 3 months of bioleaching, while aluminium removal was only 5%. Mica destruction was detected in kaolin and quartz sands samples by X-ray diffraction analysis and also by i.r. adsorption spectros