Biological removal of hydrogen sulfide from refinery wastewater and conversion to elemental sulfur.

摘要

The use of the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium limnicola forma specialis thiosulfatophilum in a bioreactor is proposed as a means of removing hydrogen sulfide from process water and producing elemental sulfur. For petroleum refineries, this is an alternative to sour water stripping followed by the Claus process. The analytical methods that were found to work without interference from other sulfur species were: methylene blue for sulfide, cyanide for elemental sulfur and turbidimetric for sulfate. Elemental Sulfur was successfully produced from sodium sulfide in a batch reactor by C. thiosulfatophilum. From 1 to 90% of the sulfide consumed was recovered as elemental sulfur. There was a mild correlation between the initial pH and the percent recovery of sulfur. The specific growth rate of C. thiosulfatophilum was found to be higher than that found in previous work. The Haldane equation for substrate inhibition was used to calculate the maximum specific growth rate as 0.45 h$sp{-1}$. The maximum tolerable level of sulfide was found to be 300 mg/L. The highest rate of substrate utilization was found to be 17.3 mg/L$cdot$h.Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses u26 Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1990 .H457. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 30-03, page: 0821. Chairman: G. Abdel-Sayed. Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1990.