METHOD OF PROCESSING WATER CONTAINING SULFUR COMPOUNDS Russian patent published in 1997 - IPC

FIELD: water purification; utilization of sulfur-containing waste. SUBSTANCE: invention is dealing with four modifications of a method for processing water containing sulfur compounds by way of biochemical oxidation of sulfide sulfur into elementary sulfur in aerobic reactor with biomass in the form of sulfide-oxidizing bacteria. In the first modification, amount of sulfide entering reactor for unit time related to biomass nitrogen is at least 10 mg/mg h. In the second case, when processing sulfide-containing water in presence of organic impurities, daily sulfide intake is at least 10 g per 1 sq.m of biomass surface. To prevent growth of bacteria of the types Thiothrix and Beggiatoa, in the third modification of method, hourly sulfide intake is 25 mg per 1 l of reactor content. In this case, a part of sulfide is oxidized into elementary sulfur and liquid remaining after separation of sulfur is entered into the second stage of aerobic oxidation into sulfate. In the fourth modification, water containing either sulfate or sulfite or thiosulfate or their mixtures or tetrathionate or elementary sulfur or organic sulfur compounds is preliminarily subjected to anaerobic treatment in presence of sulfur- and sulfate-reducing bacteria to reduce sulfur compounds into sulfide and subsequently oxidize the latter. When heavy metal ions are simultaneously present in the stage of anaerobic treatment of water, ratio of sulfur compounds (on conversion to elementary sulfur) to heavy metal concentration is maintained such as to be sufficient to completely precipitate heavy metals in the form of sulfides. EFFECT: optimized process parameters for any kind of sulfur contamination. 16 cl, 3 dwg , 6 tbl