Effect
of Methanethiol Concentration on Sulfur Production
in Biological Desulfurization Systems under Haloalkaline Conditions
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Abstract
Bioremoval of H<sub>2</sub>S from
gas streams became popular in
recent years because of high process efficiency and low operational
costs. To expand the scope of these processes to gas streams containing
volatile organic sulfur compounds, like thiols, it is necessary to
provide new insights into their impact on overall biodesulfurization
process. Published data on the effect of thiols on biodesulfurization
processes are scarce. In this study, we investigated the effect of
methanethiol on the selectivity for sulfur production in a bioreactor
integrated with a gas absorber. This is the first time that the inhibition
of biological sulfur formation by methanethiol is investigated. In
our reactor system, inhibition of sulfur production started to occur
at a methanethiol loading rate of 0.3 mmol L<sup>–1</sup> d<sup>–1</sup>. The experimental results were also described by
a mathematical model that includes recent findings on the mode of
biomass inhibition by methanethiol. We also found that the negative
effect of methanethiol can be mitigated by lowering the salinity of
the bioreactor medium. Furthermore, we developed a novel approach
to measure the biological activity by sulfide measurements using UV-spectrophotometry.
On the basis of this measurement method, it is possible to accurately
estimate the unknown kinetic parameters in the mathematical model
