细菌能将多种金属硫化物氧化成硫酸盐,把亚铁转化为高铁,这在自然界中是早已存在的事实了,但这个事实直到本世纪五十年代初才被有关研究工作者所证实。1958年,美国的肯尼柯特铜公司首次将细菌引入湿法浸出提铜工艺过程,取得了2829964号细菌冶金专利。接着,中国、苏联、加拿大、日本等国相继开展了细菌冶金的研究。 The fact that bacteria can oxidize many kinds of metal sulphides to sulphates and turn ferrous iron into high-iron ones is a long-standing fact in nature, but this fact was not confirmed by the researchers until the early 1950s. In 1958, the United States Kenny Curt copper company for the first time the bacteria into the wet leaching copper extraction process, made No. 2829964 bacterial metallurgy patents. Then, China, the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan and other countries have carried out bacterial metallurgy.