Odor potential of dewatered biosolids

Methanogens are known to be the major sulfur based organic odor reducers from dewatered biosolids during anaerobic storage. In many microbial research documents, sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) has been described to be able to consume sulfur based organic odors as well. In the study, sulfur based odor generation trend during anaerobic storage of dewatered biosolids was monitored with or without inhibiting either methanogen or SRB. It was observed that methanogen was the major sulfur based organic odor remover regardless of the presence of excess sulfate up to 2ml of 10mM on 5 g dewatered biosolids while SRB could remove 25% or less of total sulfur based organic sulfur from headspace only if methanogenesis was significantly inhibited.