Gold adsorption from cyanide solution by bacterial (Bacillus subtilis), fungal (Penicillium chrysogenum) and seaweed (Sargassum ¯uitans) biomass was examined. At pH 2.0, these biomass types were capable of sequestering up to 8.0 mmol g À1 , 7.2 mmol g À1 and 3.2 mmol g À1 , respectively. An adverse effect of increasing solution ionic strength (NaNO 3 ) on gold biosorption was observed. Goldloaded biomass could be eluted with 0.1 mol dm À3 NaOH with ef®ciencies higher than 90% at pH 5.0 at the Solid-to-Liquid ratio, S/L, = 4 (g dm À3 ). Cyanide mass balances for the adsorption, desorption as well as for the AVR process indicated the stability of the gold-cyanide which did not dissociate either upon acidi®cation or upon binding by biomass functional groups. Gold biosorption mainly involved anionic AuCN 2 À species bound by ionizable biomass functional groups carrying a positive charge when protonated. FTIR analyses indicated that the main biomass functional groups involved in gold biosorption are most probably nitrogen-containing weak base groups. The present results con®rmed that waste microbial biomaterials have some potential for removing and concentrating gold from solutions where it occurs as a gold-cyanide complex.