Biomachining of oxygen-free copperdevelopment of a continuous process for industrial application

Resumen

Today, environmental sustainability is one of the main goals of all manufacturing industries. Pollution isincreasing day by day and environmental laws are becoming more stringent. Therefore, companies needto transform to meet their traditional objectives of cost reduction and good product quality, but also makeefforts to implement a green and innovative set of technologies. One of the emerging process, not yetimplemented in industry, is biological machining or biomachining, also known as machining via bacteria.The principal objective of the thesis was to investigate the possibility of obtaining a continuousbiomachining process, where the removal rate would be constant over time. No investigation has beenpublished up to date about this topic. For this purpose, the biomachining in 9K medium with A.ferrooxidans bacteria was studied from different points of view. A culture medium and bacteria not usedin this field before were tested in order to improve the material removal rate. The continuity was achievedby introducing regeneration periods between successive biomachining stages, and based on this idea, areactor was designed in view of the industrial application of the continuous biomachining. Abiomachining process for a definite geometry by means of covering the surface of the workpiece with aresin and laser engraving was defined, and also a physicochemical method for treating the liquid residueobtained in the process.