| Author: | Fung, Siu-chung Andrew |
| Title: | Study, assessment and evaluation of the control and minimization of hydrogen sulfide |
| Degree: | M.Sc. |
| Year: | 2010 |
| Subject: | Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations Hydrogen sulfide -- Environmental aspects -- China -- Hong Kong Water -- Pollution -- China -- Hong Kong |
| Department: | Department of Civil and Structural Engineering |
| Pages: | 182 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The dissertation focused on the investigation and improvement of hydrogen sulfide problems in Hong Kong. Current situation on H₂S problems in Hong Kong. and their conventional control methods were investigated, together with the fcnnation of hydrogen sulfide; conventional mitigation measures. After the investigation on the existing mitigation measures, a new hydrogen sulfide minimization method was proposed in order to effectively minimize hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide causes serious odour nuisance and corrosion problems in Hong Kong and even sometimes causes life threatening to those workers who are working in confined area with high concentration of hydrogen sulfide. Hong Kong government has employed different methods to improve the H₂S problems. Yet due to the limitation of these methods, hydrogen sulfide problem still exists m Hong Kong. Hence study on hydrogen sulfide and to develop new controlling and minimizing methods is needed to tackle this serious problem. The major sources of hydrogen sulfide in Hong Kong are sewerage system, storm sewer system, nullah, sediment of river and refuse transfer stations. The problem is serious due to: 1. Wastewater in Hong Kong consists of high sulfate ion due to use of sea water for toilet flushing. 2. A lot of untreated sewage discharges to water bodies in 80s due to rapid economic development and urbanization. 3. Illegal discharge of waste occurs in Hong Kong. 4. Misconnection of foul sewer pipes to storm sewers. Conventionally hydrogen sulfide mitigation methods can be categorized into two groups: a) Minimization - prevent the generation of hydrogen sulfide b) Control - remove hydrogen sulfur from foul gas. Yet each method has it own drawbacks and limitation, for example control methods always has high capital cost and will generate secondary waste. Some chemical will have adverse effect to the environment will. On study of conventional hydrogen sulfide minimizing and controlling methods, it shows that there is a need to develop a new method as those methods have many drawbacks and is not feasible in many situations. Recently two new products - BioStremeTM 201 and Effective Micro-organism appear on market for used to minimize odour. These two products may overcome the drawbacks of conventional H₂S control methods. The experimental results in this study on evaluating the performance of using these two products to control emission of H₂S in sediment showed that they can effectively minimize hydrogen sulfide generation. BioStreme™ 201 can reduce hydrogen sulfide productions in gas phase up to 100% and 40% in water phase. For Effective Micro-organism, the hydrogen sulfide in gas phase is minimized by 92% and 72% in water phase. Moreover a preliminary experiment was controlled and showed that the method of employing these two products together could give excellent result on minimizing hydrogen sulfide generation. Using 100ppm of Effective Micro-organism and 50ppm of BioStreme™ 201 showed that 100% of hydrogen sulfide in gas phase was minimized in gas phase and up to 88% in water phase. At the end of this dissertation, this method is suggested to be used for treating large amount of water like river to minimize hydrogen sulfide. This method is cheaper and easier to apply than existing methods like bioremediation since: 1. It needs not to inject the solution into the sediment. Hence the operation become simple and can be applied in more complex condition. 2. The bacteria will grow and multiply by themselves. Hence less solution is needed to treat same area of sediment, the operation cost can also be reduced because addition of solution is not required to maintenance the hydrogen sulfide minimization effect. Yet, the limitations of this method are: 1. The performance of the bacteria depends on the water characteristic. Hence the minimization efficiency varies between different conditions. 2. Time is needed for the bacteria to develop and degrade the carbon source in the sediment so as to minimize the generation of hydrogen sulfide. Moreover, as the degrade mechanism of the bacteria is not well known, a further study on the bacteria activity and on-site pilot study shall be conducted to evaluate the feasibility of this method in real situation. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
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| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b23604414.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 46.61 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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