Thiobacillus sp. IW., capable of oxidizing hydrogen sulfide, was isolated from waste coal mine water around Hawsun in Chunnam province. The isolate was motile gram-negative rod shape, formed spore and grew up to be aerobically facultative chemolithotr...
Thiobacillus sp. IW., capable of oxidizing hydrogen sulfide, was isolated from waste coal mine water around Hawsun in Chunnam province. The isolate was motile gram-negative rod shape, formed spore and grew up to be aerobically facultative chemolithotroph by using energy released from the oxidation of reduced inorganic sulfur compounds. It was found that the optimum thiosulfate concentration for growth was 32mM. The G+C content of the DNA was 65.0 mol%. The isolate had 16:1+17cyc, 16:0 as their major non-hydroxylated cellular fatty acids, 3-OH 12:0 as a hydroxylated fatty acid and also contained unidentified C_18 branched fatty acid. The ubiquinone system in the respiratory chain was Q-9. The cell productivity was 6.25mg/1.h and the isolate grew logarithmically up to 18 hour. The maximum specific growth rate of cell was 0.78h^-1 and generation time was 0.9 hour. In order to oxidize hydrogen sulfide in a bubble column reactor, Thiobacillus sp. IW. was immobilized on Polyvinylpyridine(PVP). 1.2l of broth medium containing 7.5g of immobilized PVP was used as a liquid phase and gas was supplied through the sintered glass distributor under hydrogen sulfide concentration controlled air stream. A Michaelis-Menten equation was applied for kinetics modeling and the maximum removal rate(V_m) and saturation constant(K_s) of hydrogen sulfide were 52.4(g-S/kg-dry PVP.d) and 62.88ppm, respectively.