Elemental sulfur recovery of biological sulfide removal process from wastewater: A review

Sulfide is highly toxic, corrosive, malodorous and may cause many other hazards; therefore, it is necessary to take effective measures to control its emission to the environment. Many physicochemical processes have been devised to separate sulfur from wastewaters. Compared with those traditional methods, biological sulfide removal processes not only have high removal rates, but also generate elemental sulfur, thus recovering mineral resources from wastes. In the paper, the generation methods of elemental sulfur in biological sulfide removal process are reviewed and the characteristics of biologically produced sulfur are described, accordingly the recovery methods of elemental sulfur from wastewater are discussed.