Title: A chemo-biological treatment of scrubbing water from power plants with recovery of value-added products

Authors: Rima A. Biswas, Ram A. Pandey, Tapan Chakrabarti, Sukumar Devotta

Addresses: Waste Water Technology Division, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur 440 020, India. ' Environmental Biotechnology Division, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur 440 020, India. ' Environmental Biotechnology Division, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur 440 020, India. ' National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur 440 020, India

Abstract: A chemo-biological approach for treating sulphate-rich effluent generated during wet scrubbing of flue gas emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants has been discussed. Microbial sulphate reduction was carried out in an anaerobic up-flow packed bed bioreactor (R₁) using ethanol as carbon source. More than 90% of Total Equivalent Sulphate (TES) present in the effluent was reduced to sulphide at HRT of 17 h in the tested loading range of 0.58–3.10 kg SO₄/m³/day. Mass balance revealed that more than 88% of sulphate reduced was present as dissolved sulphide (HS⁻) and while only 0.01% was present as H₂S(g). The paper discusses the feasibility of converting both H₂S(g) and HS⁻ into value-added products such as elemental sulphur and metal sulphide nanoparticles, respectively. Since the amount of H₂S generated is very low (0.01%), this paper also suggests recovery of dissolved sulphide from the R₁ effluent, as transition metal sulphide nanoparticles.

Keywords: chemo-biological treatment; FGD; flue gas desulphurisation; sulphate reduction; alkaline scrubbing; elemental sulphur; transition metals; sulphide nanoparticles; nanotechnology; effluent treatment; wet scrubbing; flue gas emissions; fossil fuel fired power plants; microbial sulphate reduction; anaerobic packed bed bioreactors; bioremediation; wastewater treatment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2010.035919

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2010 Vol.43 No.1/2/3, pp.129 - 142

Published online: 09 Oct 2010 *

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