Start-up, performance and optimization of a compost biofilter treating gas-phase mixture of benzene and toluene

Rene ER 1 , Kar S 2 , Krishnan J 3 , Pakshirajan K 4 , López ME 5 , Murthy DV 6 Show all authors , Swaminathan T 7

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Environmental Engineering and Water Technology, UNESCO-IHE Institute of Water Education, PO Box 3015, 2601 DA Delft, The Netherlands. Electronic address: e.raj@unesco-ihe.org
  • 2 Department of Environmental Engineering and Water Technology, UNESCO-IHE Institute of Water Education, PO Box 3015, 2601 DA Delft, The Netherlands
  • 3 Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039, India
  • 5 Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Sciences, Campus da Zapateira, University of La Coruńa, Rua da Fraga, 10, E-15008 La Coruña, Spain
  • 6 Broward College, 3501 Davie Road, Davie, FL 33314, USA
  • 7 Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai 600036, India
Bioresour Technol, 2015 Aug;190:529-35.
PMID: 25827361 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.03.049

Abstract

The performance of a compost biofilter inoculated with mixed microbial consortium was optimized for treating a gas-phase mixture of benzene and toluene. The biofilter was acclimated to these VOCs for a period of ∼18d. The effects of concentration and flow rate on the removal efficiency (RE) and elimination capacity (EC) were investigated by varying the inlet concentration of benzene (0.12-0.95g/m(3)), toluene (0.14-1.48g/m(3)) and gas-flow rate (0.024-0.072m(3)/h). At comparable loading rates, benzene removal in the mixture was reduced in the range of 6.6-41% in comparison with the individual benzene degradation. Toluene removal in mixture was even more affected as observed from the reductions in REs, ranging from 18.4% to 76%. The results were statistically interpreted by performing an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to elucidate the main and interaction effects.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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