SO4-BIORED Demonstration of biological sulfate reduction in cold
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB - RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB, Lund |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 1 632 000 |
| Project duration | March 2019 - December 2020 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | The strategic innovation programme for Swedish mining and metal producing industry - SIP Swedish Mining Innovation |
| Call | Strategic innovation programme for mining and metal producing industry – 2018 |
Important results from the project
The project has successfully reached its goals. The goal has been achieved to demonstrate a sulfate reducing bioprocess pilot plant (TRL 6) with a reduction efficiency of 95%. Through the lab and pilot run, the innovative microbial consortium was developed to achieve a three times higher reduction capacity than SOA, which is a very good result in the cold climate. The hydrogen sulfide was not used to precipitate metals but instead an efficient stripping technology was developed to drive the hydrogen sulfide in the gas phase which is then converted to sodium sulfide in a scrubber system.
Expected long term effects
SO4-Biored has achieved and exceeded the expected results, but a very high rate of sulphate reduction in the pilot. The project has developed a great deal of knowledge about which optimizations and further developments need to be made to enable implementation. The project has contributed to the fact that in the future if the process is implemented on a full scale, it is possible to achieve the effect of reducing the water footprint from the mining industry at the same time as the vision of zero-waste is achieved.
Approach and implementation
The project has been carried out according to plan with some delays, partly due to limitations in winter conditions where the pilot could not be run, partly due to covid-19. The original plan was to run the pilot in Boliden, but due to covid-19 and its travel restrictions, this was not possible. We instead found a good solution by sending water to Fortum´s facility in Kumla where the pilot could be run successfully and efficiently during spring and summer. This creates good conditions for future resource-efficient research projects in the area.