Specialist mineral and metallurgical research company Mintek announced on Monday that a Chinese gold bioleaching plant, which uses South African-Australian gold bioleach technology developed by Mintek and the BacTech Mining Corporation, has scooped the international Mining Environmental Protection award at the China Mining 2006 awards ceremony, in Beijing.

Michelago Limited's Laizhou Biogold plant in China's Shandong province, has been using the proprietary Bacox bioleach technology to liberate gold from difficult-to-treat concentrates.

"The Laizhou facility is a toll treatment plant designed to treat a variety of concentrates from the surrounding regions," explained Mintek biotechnology division specialist engineer John Neale, who was involved with the process design of the plant.

"Bioleaching has replaced roasting as the technology of choice and has become the industry standard in Africa, Australia and Asia for treating these types of concentrates, owing to the environmentally-friendly nature of the process," stated Dr Tony Pinches, manager of Mintek's biotechnology division.

The Laizhou Biogold plant is currently undergoing expansion, which should see a doubling of gold production from the bioleach facility to over 150 000 oz of gold a year.