Potential utilization of fungi in biomining as biological engines for the alteration of sulfide and carbon matrices

Abstract

An increasing attention to biomining technologies has emerged in the mining industry as a result of stricter environmental regulations and economic concerns to process ores with more complex mineralogy having high sulfur and carbon content. The application of bacteria and archaea in biomining has been broadly investigated. Nevertheless, to overcome the present challenges in biomining, there is a potential opportunity for fungi to be employed for the treatment of double/refractory sulfidic ores. This review, for the first time, provides a detailed investigation of the reported fungi used as biological engines to alter numerous sulfur and carbon matrices, including low and high-rank coals, organic and inorganic sulfur, as well as sulfide and carbon minerals. This study illustrates the potential applicability of fungi in biomining technologies, and summarizes microorganisms that have been successfully used with different sulfur and carbon sources. The fundamentals of fungi and their applications have been discussed in detail. Future directions that require further research to foster biomining technologies assisted by fungi have also been provided.