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High rates of anaerobic oxidation of methane, ethane and propane coupled to thiosulphate reduction

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Abstract

Anaerobic methane oxidation coupled to sulphate reduction and the use of ethane and propane as electron donors by sulphate-reducing bacteria represent new opportunities for the treatment of streams contaminated with sulphur oxyanions. However, growth of microbial sulphate-reducing populations with methane, propane or butane is extremely slow, which hampers research and development of bioprocesses based on these conversions. Thermodynamic calculations indicate that the growth rate with possible alternative terminal electron acceptors such as thiosulphate and elemental sulphur may be higher, which would facilitate future research. Here, we investigate the use of these electron acceptors for oxidation of methane, ethane and propane, with marine sediment as inoculum. Mixed marine sediments originating from Aarhus Bay (Denmark) and Eckernförde Bay (Germany) were cultivated anaerobically at a pH between 7.2 and 7.8 and a temperature of 15 °C in the presence of methane, ethane and propane and various sulphur electron acceptors. The sulphide production rates in the conditions with methane, ethane and propane with sulphate were respectively 2.3, 2.2 and 1.8 μmol S L−1 day−1. For sulphur, no reduction was demonstrated. For thiosulphate, the sulphide production rates were up to 50 times higher compared to those of sulphate, with 86.2, 90.7 and 108.1 μmol S L−1 day−1 for methane, ethane and propane respectively. This sulphide production was partly due to disproportionation, 50 % for ethane but only 7 and 14 % for methane and propane respectively. The oxidation of the alkanes in the presence of thiosulphate was confirmed by carbon dioxide production. This is, to our knowledge, the first report of thiosulphate use as electron acceptor with ethane and propane as electron donors. Additionally, these results indicate that thiosulphate is a promising electron acceptor to increase start-up rates for sulphate-reducing bioprocesses coupled to short-chain alkane oxidation.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation STW, which is part of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and which is partly funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. It was also financially supported by the WIMEK/SENSE research school. Additionally, we would like to thank Gusti Diansyah and Brian van Ringelestijn for their collaboration on the measurements. Anna Lichtschlag and Tina Treude from the MPI-Bremen are acknowledged for providing access to the Eckernförde Bay sediment. We thank the crew of the LITTORINA from the Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften for the sediment sampling. We thank Hans Røy, Kasper Kjeldsen, Mark Lever and the captain and crew of the RV Tyra for the successful sampling on May 23rd 2011. The authors are grateful to the staff at The Center for Geomicrobiology from Aarhus University for their hospitality and help with analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sub-Department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University, Bornse Weilanden 9, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Diego A. Suarez-Zuluaga, Jan Weijma & Cees J. N. Buisman

  2. Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Dreijenplein 10, 6703 HB, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Peer H. A. Timmers

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  1. Diego A. Suarez-Zuluaga
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  2. Jan Weijma
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  3. Peer H. A. Timmers
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  4. Cees J. N. Buisman
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Correspondence to Jan Weijma.

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Suarez-Zuluaga, D.A., Weijma, J., Timmers, P.H.A. et al. High rates of anaerobic oxidation of methane, ethane and propane coupled to thiosulphate reduction. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 3697–3704 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3606-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3606-0

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