Influence of Wastewater Constituents on Hydrogen Sulfide Emission in Sewer Networks

Abstract

Transport of wastewater in sewer networks causes potential problems associated with hydrogen sulfide in regard to odor nuisance, health risk, and microbially induced corrosion. To what extent these problems occur depends not only on the rate of sulfide formation but also on the rate of hydrogen sulfide emission into the sewer atmosphere. To gain understanding of the influence of wastewater constituents on the emission process, a number of batch experiments were conducted on domestic wastewater collected from sewer networks. The emission rate of hydrogen sulfide in the wastewater investigated was found to be approximately 60% of that in de-ionized water in terms of the overall mass-transfer coefficient, resulting in a correction factor (alpha) of 0.6. The alpha factor did not change significantly within the turbulence range studied (Froude numbers of 0.04–0.23). The Henry’s law constant for hydrogen sulfide in wastewater was observed to be close to that in de-ionized water, reflecting a correction factor (beta) of 1.0. By taking these results into account, modeling aspects of hydrogen sulfide emission in sewer networks are presented in this paper.