Estudio piloto de aislamiento y fenotipificación de bacterias que participan en los procesos de biolixiviación, en las zonas mineras del Departamento de Boyacá

An alternative to diminish the environmental contamination generated by the use of chemical substances when heavy metals in the mining industry as well as the costs in chemical equipments are extracted is to use in this process microorganisms that have demonstrated this activity, denominated bioleaching. For this, is necessary to identify and to phenotyping these microorganisms. The objective of this project was to isolate and to phenotype obtained bioleaching microorganisms of four emerald mines of the department of Boyaca (Muzo, Coscuez, Chivor and Consorcio). The sampling was made in water and rock, main habitat of the bacteria that participate in the Bioleaching processes. The isolation was made previous preparation of each one of the samples, which seeded in culture means 9K, liquid and solid, and incubated by seven days to 37°C. showing physical changes in the color intensity and the aspect in culture means, which allows to be conceited that it has happened some action of the leaching bacteria on compounds of means. The microscopic observation demonstrated the presence of gram negative bacilli and crystals. On the other hand, the characteristic of being was confirmed acidophilic bacteria since its development was obtained to pH between 1 and 2,5. The results obtained in this study allowed to conclude that in these mines there is presence of bacterial organisms with morphology and compatible biochemical behavior with biolixiviantes bacteria of the Thiobacillus sort. The obtained isolation and fenotipificacion in vitro open the possibility of establishing an optimal method for its conservation and later use in bioremediation processes.