Co-treatment of single, binary and ternary mixture gas of ethanethiol, dimethyl disulfide and thioanisole in a biotrickling filter seeded with Lysinibacillus sphaericus RG-1

The work reports the aerobic co-treatment characteristics of single, binary and ternary mixture gas of ethanethiol, dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) and thioanisole in a biotrickling filter seeded with Lysinibacillus sphaericus RG-1. 100% removal efficiency (RE) was achieved for sole ethanethiol, DMDS and thioanisole at inlet concentration below 1.05, 0.81 and 0.33 mg/L, respectively, at empty bed resident time 110 s. In addition, 100% RE was also obtained with binary ethanethiol and DMDS (1:1) and ternary ethanethiol, DMDS and thioanisole (3:2:1). Michaelis-Menten equation was modified to incorporate the plug flow behavior of the bioreactor. The maximum removal rate (Vmax) was calculated as 56.18, 57.14 and 22.78 g/m3/h for sole ethanethiol, DMDS and thioanisole, respectively, while the Vmax was 41.84 and 14.56 g/m3/h for DMDS and thioanisole in binary and ternary systems, respectively. Overall, these suggest that not only sole but also binary and ternary mixture can be efficiently removed in this system.