International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE 2010), 11-13 May 2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Electronic Nose to Detect Sulphate Reducing Bacteria

Which is An Agent of Corrosion
U.Devi Chandaran1, Z.Abdul Halim 2 , O.Sidek2, Darah,I3, J.Mohamad-Salleh1 , N.Mohamad1, Rashidah, A.R.3
1
School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, USM
2
CEDEC, USM
3
School of Biology, USM
Penang, Malaysia

Abstract Sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) is a nonpathogenic
and anaerobic bacterium which can produce enzyme to
accelerate the reduction of sulfate compounds to hydrogen
sulphate that corrodes metal. This paper will study the possibility
of using electronic nose which consists of chemical sensing
system, data acquisition system and pattern recognition system
such as artificial neural network to detect hydrogen sulphide.
There are a few methods of detecting SRB such as laboratory
analysis and field test kit but the procedures are costly and take
longer time, within 1 to 2 days. Study shows that electronic nose
can be used to detect SRB by detecting hydrogen sulphide that is
produced during reduction process. The electronic nose can
detect hydrogen sulphide within 16 hours where the detection
period is reduced from 30% to 65%. Study also shows that the
electronic nose with micro hotplate sensor base will reduce 86%
of power consumption compared to electronic nose with alumina
ceramic sensor base.
Keywords- Electronic nose, metal oxide sensor, micro hotplate,
Sulphate Reducing Bacteria.
I. INTRODUCTION
High sulfate concentration in water system can create problem
such as corrosion of water transport system and of concrete
structure. SRB is a nonpathogenic and anaerobic bacteria and
they can produce enzyme to accelerate the reduction of sulfate
compounds to hydrogen sulphide that corrodes copper, iron
and carbon steel. In order for this reduction to occur, four
components must be present which are SRB (Sulfate Reducing
Bacteria), sulfate, external energy source in the form of free
electrons and the temperature of the water must be less than
65C. [1]
A water system naturally consists of sulfate based
components. When sulfate is added to a closed water system,
the sodium sulphite is oxidized to sodium sulphate as
indicated in the following reaction:
2Na+1 + SO3-1+ 0.5O2-2 = 2Na+1 + SO4-2 (1)
SRB can accelerate the corrosion mechanism of iron. The
resultant accelerated corrosion mechanism of iron by the
sulfate reducing bacteria is shown in below equations
SO 4-2 + 8H = S-2 + 4H2O (2)
8H2O = 8 OH-1 + 8H+ 1 (3)
2H+1 + S-2 = H2 S (4)
Fe+2 + S-2 = FeS (5)
3Fe+2 + 6(OH)-1 = 3Fe (OH)2 (6)
Since hydrogen sulphide is a by-product of SRB metabolism,
this hydrogen sulphide can be used as an indicator that SRB
may present in the water. There are a few methods of detection
of SRB in water system such as biological analysis which can
be performed either by laboratory analysis or by field analyses
[1]. However these procedures are costly and take longer time,
within 1 to 2 days. The basic procedure for both of these
techniques involves the addition of the water or deposit
sample into a container to which nutrients have been added
and incubation of the sample.
The laboratory procedure is costly, the sample must be
collected in a sterilized bottle and the sample should be
delivered to the laboratory within 24 hours after collection. It
needs a lengthy laboratory based procedures. The field
analysis procedure is cheaper and it does not require a great
deal of training expertise. However it takes 1 to 2 days and
considered to be a long period [2].
This paper discusses the possibility of using electronic nose to
detect SRB that will cause corrosion in water system. It also
describes the development of electronic nose that focus on
power consumption which is important for electronic nose
application.

978-1-4244-6235-3/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

 II. ANALYSIS OF GROWING SRB

Under anaerobic conditions, SRB oxidize simple organic

compounds by utilizing sulfate and generate sulfide (S2-). For
lab test purpose, SRB can be grown on agar medium.
Sulaiman Al-Zuhair [4] has done a research in growing SRB
on agar plate. In his research, twenty gram of sludge sample,
obtained from a local petroleum refinery, were dispensed into
100ml of autoclaved pre-reduced bicarbonate buffered
solution [4]. The sample was grown on agar medium. The
samples were incubated at 30C for 10 days under anaerobic
conditions. After incubating for a week, several colonies of
SRB were observed. The bacteria was verified to be SRB as it
is grown on a selective media and share the same properties
with common SRBs such as being motile, stain gram negative Figure 1. Effect of initial sulfate concentration of the SRB growth at 35C
and have a rod shape (Bacilli). and pH7. [4]

As mentioned before, sulfate must be present in order to

accelerate the reduction of sulfate compounds to the corrosive
hydrogen sulphide. Sulaiman Al Zuhair [4] has used various
concentrations of sulfate from Na2SO4 in the range of 500 to
4000 gmm-3 in his experiments. He has used the microscopic
counting technique to determine the amount of biomass
concentration. He has found that the optimum growth rate of
SRB was at 2500 gm-3 of sulfate concentration as shown in
figure 1.

In his experiments, the concentrations of sulfate in the

samples were also determined. SulvaVer 4 sulfate reagent was
added to 10ml sample and the absorption was measured using
spectrophotometer to determine the sulfate concentration. The
sulfate concentration was determined with time as shown in
figure 2. In the graph, it shows that until 1000 minutes, the
drop in sulfate concentration started to be significant. The
rates of drop in sulfate concentration at initial concentration of
2500gm-3 were higher than at 1500gm-3, as expected because
the SRB growth at 2500gm-3 was the highest. Both of the Figure 2. Sulfate concentration drop with time at 35 C and pH 7[4]
graphs show that as soon as the growth rate starts to increase
and enter exponential stage, the sulfate concentration starts to
drop.

Based on his experiments, it is found that after 1000 minutes

the SRB starts carry out sulfate reduction significantly. As
long as the sulfate concentration is reducing, the sulfide will
be generated significantly based on the equation (2). This
sulfide will react with H+ to form hydrogen sulfide H2S. This
H2S which is in a gas form can be detected by electronic nose
at 1000 minutes. Experiments carried out by Sulaiman Al
Zubair shows that if the sample has SRB, it can be detected
after 1000 minutes.
III. ELECTRONIC NOSE
Electronic nose consists of a mechanism for chemical
detection, such as an array of sensors, data acquisition system
and a mechanism for pattern recognition such as neural
network. Current research is focusing on making the system
smaller, less expensive, more sensitive and low power
Figure 3: Block diagram of electronic nose
consumption. Block diagram of electronic nose is shown in
figure 3.
Metal oxide is one of the well known chemical sensors. The
electrical resistance of the metal oxide sensor changes in the
presence of gas with the magnitude of the response dependent
on the nature of the detected molecule and the type of metal
oxide used in preparing the sensor. In general, there are two
types of metal oxide sensor, alumina ceramic sensor base and
micro hotplate sensor base.
 Metal oxide sensor need to be heated until 350C to react with Table 1: Summary of power consumption of electronic nose using ceramic
sensor base and micro hotplate sensor base
some gases. Micro hotplate is a micro machined device
consisting of a built in heater, thermometer and electrodes to Power Power
probe the resistance of a film deposited over them [3] [5] [6]. Consumption of consumption of
Heater is used to heat up the metal oxide until 350C. Micro Electronic Nose Electronic Nose
hotplate use lower power consumption compared to alumina with alumina with micro
base sensor because micro hotplate is a suspended structure ceramic sensor hotplate sensor
which is important for thermal isolation. Micro hotplate can be base base
developed using CMOS technology and cavity under the Sensor 660mW 40mW
micro hotplate can be developed using bulk micro machine Microcontroller 3.6mW 3.6mW
process. Response time of micro hotplate sensor base is ATmega8L
between 10 seconds to 120 seconds and the size of one sensor 12 bit ADC 60mW 60mW
is around 200m [3]. Micrograph of micro hotplate is shown AD7870
in figure 4. Total 723.6mW 103.6mW

Summary in table 1 shows that the power consumption in

electronic nose using micro hotplate sensor base is only
around 103.6mW whereas power consumption in electronic
nose using alumina ceramic base sensor is around 723.6mW.
It shows that the power consumption in electronic nose can be
reduced until 86% by using micro hotplate sensor base.

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Growing SRB

Based on study, the SRB bacteria can be grown in the jar as

Figure 4: Micrograph of micro hotplate before bulk micro machine process
[3].
shown in figure 5. For anaerobic cultivation, anaeropack-
anaero is used as oxygen absorber and carbon dioxide
generator. It is in sachet form and this sachet absorbs oxygen
in the jar. Theoretically, it generates about 21 % of carbon
dioxide simultaneously and produces anaerobic atmosphere.

Micro hotplate will transform the changes in resistance of

metal oxide to electrical signal. The electrical signal will be
read by microcontroller which is capable of producing a
digital fingerprint of specific gas [4].

ATmega8L microcontroller can be used to control the whole

system such as to read data from analog digital converter and
to send the data to PC for further analysis. ATmega8L
microcontroller is an 8bit microcontroller with flash memory
and low power consumption which is suitable for this
application. Analog digital converter is the heart of the data
acquisition system. AD7870 is an analog digital converter
with 12 bit resolution, one part in 4096 resolution or 0.0244%
of full scale is applicable for this application. Figure 5: Jar to grow SRB.

Table 1 shows the summary of power consumption of

electronic nose using alumina ceramic sensor base and micro Readout circuit will be put in the jar and the data can be
hotplate sensor base. transmitted to outside wirelessly using radio frequency (RF)
technology.
Readout circuit

A voltage divider circuit as shown in figure 6 can be used to

transform the changes in resistance of metal oxide sensor to
electrical signal. A voltage divider is a simple linear circuit
that produces an output voltage (Vout) that is a fraction of its
input voltage (V). Input voltage is applied to allow
measurement of voltage across a load resistor (RL) which is
connected in series with the sensor. The Vout is calculated as
below:

RL
Vout V (7)
RL  Rs

Figure 6: Voltage divider circuit

Conclusion

Based on study, it can be concluded that electronic nose can be

used to detect SRB which is an agent of corrosion. The
electronic nose can detect SRB within 16 hours where the
detection period is reduced from 30% to 65%. Study also
shows that the use of micro hotplate sensor base in electronic
nose will reduce power consumption by 86%.

References

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