Abstract: In order to improve and perfect the fundamental method for controlling coal seam gas by microbes, an experimental device was developed for studying coal adsorbed methane microbiological degradation in the environment of simulated solid coal. A strain of efficient methane oxidizing bacteria belonging to Methylomarinum was extracted from the soil samples taken from a return air course in Jiaozuo Jiulishan Coal Mine. Through controlling the load of axial compression quantitatively and continually, injecting the bacteria liquid into the test piece of coal body, the oxidation effects of different coal samples with liquid containing methanotrophs were investigated. The volume of carbon dioxide as one of the characteristic metabolites of methane oxidizing bacteria was measured. The experimental results show that in the range of axial pressure 1-5 MPa, with the increasing of axial pressure, the degradation rate of methane decreases rapidly in the early stages and then decreases slowly, that under the same axial pressure, the greater the Protodyakonov coefficient is, the higher the degradation rate would be, and that the ratio of volume of methane consumption to that of carbon dioxide produced is roughly 12∶1.

Key words: gas, methanotrophs, degradation rate, axial pressure, Protodyakonov coefficient, carbon dioxide