A pilot-scale sulfur-based sulfidogenic system for the treatment of Cu-laden electroplating wastewater using real domestic sewage as electron donor

Elemental sulfur (S⁰) reduction process has been demonstrated as an attractive and cost-efficient approach for metal-laden wastewater treatment in lab-scale studies. However, the system performance and stability have not been evaluated in pilot- or large-scale wastewater treatment. Especially, the sulfide production rate and microbial community structure may significantly vary from lab-scale system to pilot- or large-scale systems using real domestic sewage as carbon source, which brings questions to this novel technology. In this study, therefore, a pilot-scale sulfur-based sulfidogenic treatment system was newly developed and applied for the treatment of Cu-laden electroplating wastewaters using domestic sewage as carbon source. During the 175-d operation, >99.9% of Cu²⁺ (i.e., 5580 and 1187 mg Cu/L for two types of electroplating wastewaters) was efficiently removed by the biogenic hydrogen sulfide that produced through S⁰ reduction. Relatively high level of sulfide production (200 mg S/L) can be achieved by utilizing organics in raw domestic sewage, which was easily affected by the organic content and pH value of the domestic sewage. The long-term feeding of domestic sewage significantly re-shaped the microbial community in sulfur-reducing bioreactors. Compared to the reported lab-scale bioreactors, higher microbial community diversity was found in our pilot-scale bioreactors. The presence of hydrolytic, fermentative and sulfur-reducing bacteria was the critical factor for system stability. Accordingly, a two-step ecological interaction among fermentative and sulfur-reducing bacteria was newly proposed for sulfide production: biodegradable particulate organic carbon (BPOC) was firstly degraded to dissolved organic carbon (DOC) by the hydrolytic and fermentative bacteria. Then, sulfur-reducing bacteria utilized the total DOC (both DOC degraded from BPOC and the original DOC present in domestic sewage) as electron donor and reduced the S⁰ to sulfide. Afterwards, the sulfide precipitated Cu²⁺ in the post sedimentation tank. Compared with other reported technologies, the sulfur-based treatment system remarkable reduced the total chemical cost by 87.5‒99.6% for the same level of Cu²⁺ removal. Therefore, this pilot-scale study demonstrated that S⁰ reduction process can be a sustainable technology to generate sulfide for the co-treatment of Cu-laden electroplating wastewater and domestic sewage, achieving higher Cu²⁺removal and higher cost-effectiveness than the conventional technologies.