[Hydrogen sulfide removal by the combination of non-thermal plasma and biological process]

A bench scale system integrating a non-thermal plasma (NTP) unit with a biotricking filtration (BTF) unit for the treatment of gases containing hydrogen sulfide (H2S) was investigated. The additional use of the biotrickling filter to NTP reactor not only leads to the enhancement of hydrogen sulfide removal efficiency up from 83.4% to 90.1%, but also eliminates gas-phase intermediate products from NTP degradation of H2S to produce sulfate and H2O. The dynamic changes of microbial community in BTF influenced by ozone from NTP were assessed by PCR-DGGE. Results show that the microbial community was affected by ozone. After the integration, a part of microorganisms disappeared, and meanwhile some new microorganisms appeared. The microbial community structure in BTF changed from eight bands to nine bands; three bands which have the functions of desulfurization disappeared and four bands which have the functions of desulfurization appeared; five bands which have the functions of desulfurization and sulfate reduction were unchanged. The bacterial groups in the BTF unit of NTP-BTF system include Uncultured Thiobacillus sp., Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans strain dfI, Uncultured Thiobacillus sp., Uncultured Acidiphilium sp., Uncultured Xanthomonadaceae bacterium clone SBLE6C12, Uncultured 8-Proteobacterium and Paracraurococcus sp. 1PNM-27.