Oxygen Reduction Reaction Affected by Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria: Different Roles of Bacterial Cells and Metabolites

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) were found to be capable of tolerating a certain amount of oxygen (O₂), but how they affect oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has not been clear. The present work investigated the impact of SRB on ORR in 3.5 wt% sodium chloride solution with the cyclic voltammetry method. The addition of SRB culture solution hampered both the reduction of O₂ to superoxide (O₂^·-) and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) to water (H₂O), and the influence of SRB metabolites was much larger than that of bacterial cells. Sulfide and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), typical inorganic and organic metabolic products, had great impact on ORR. Sulfide played an important role in the decrease of cathodic current for H₂O₂ reduction due to its hydrolysis and chemical reaction activity with H₂O₂. EPS were sticky, easy to adsorb on the electrode surface and abundant in functional groups, which hindered the transformation of O₂ into O₂^·- and favored the reduction of H₂O₂ to H₂O.