Abstract
Air biofiltration has been shown as a low-cost, competitive alternative to the physico-chemical treatment technologies to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from industrial air emissions. In order to investigate the performance of this growing technology, two biofiltration pilot units were operated for a continuous period of 3 months. Commercial peat was used as the support material. At star-up, the biofilters were inoculated with a two-months conditioned culture seeded with activated sludge from an industrial wastewater treatment plant. The moisture content of the filter material was adjusted to approximately 80% (wet basis). Nutrients were added periodically to the medium. Temperature was kept on 24-28 oC. Influences of toluene inlet concentration and gas flow rate were studied. The toluene inlet concentration was raised stepwise to 3.5 g m -3 , using a different constant flow rate for each biofilter: 0.5 m 3 h -1 and 1.0 m 3 h -1 . Maximum removal efficiencies, with a near complete removal of toluene, were reached for toluene inlet loads up to 90 g m -3 h -1 . Toluene inlet concentrations greater than 2.5 g m -3 caused the bioprocess inhibition. Inlet gas flow rate was varied from 0.5 m 3 h -1 to 2.9 m 3 h -1 showing
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