Sulfate reduction at low pH in organic wastewaters

The objective of the research described in this thesis was to investigate the operational window of dissimilatory sulfate reduction at low pH (6, 5 and 4) during the acidification of organic wastewaters. High sulfate reduction efficiencies at low pH are desirable for a more sustainable operation of acidification reactors in a two-phase wastewater treatment system, as pH control requires less caustic and/or the effluent recirculation from the second (methanogenic) reactor can be skipped. The low pH would also facilitate the removal of sulfide by stripping, as the fraction of gaseous sulfide increases with decreasing pH