Sulfate inhibition effect on sulfate reducing bacteria

There is an increasing interest in the potential of bacterial sulfatereduction as an alternative method for sulfate removal fromwastewater. Under anaerobic conditions, sulfate-reducing bacteria(SRB) utilize sulfate to oxidize organic compounds and generatesulfide (S2-). SRB were successfully isolated from sludge samplesobtained from a local petroleum refinery, and used for sulfateremoval. The effects of initial sulfate concentration, temperature and pH on the rate of bacterial growth and anaerobic sulfate removalwere investigated and the optimum conditions were identified. Theexperimental data were used to determine the parameters of twoproposed kinetic model, which take into consideration substrateinhibition effect.