Construction and Economics of a Pilot/Full-Scale Biological Trickling Filter Reactor for the Removal of Volatile Organic Compounds from Polluted Air

Abstract

The design and the construction of an actual 8.7-m 3 pilot/ full-scale biotrickling filter for waste air treatment is described and compared with a previous conceptual scale-up of a laboratory reactor. The reactor construction costs are detailed and show that about one-half of the total reactor costs ($97,000 out of $178,000) was for personnel and engineering time, whereas ~20% was for monitoring and control equipment. A detailed treatment cost analysis demonstrated that, for an empty bed contact time of 90 sec, the overall treatment costs (including capital charges) were as low as $8.7/1000 m 3 air in the case where a nonchlorinated volatile organic compound (VOC) was treated, and $14/ 1000 m 3 air for chlorinated compounds such as CH 2 Cl 2 . Comparison of these costs with conventional air pollution control techniques demonstrates excellent perspectives for more field applications of biotrickling filters. As the specific costs of building and operating biotrickling filter reactors decrease with increasing size of the reactor, the cost benefit of biotrickling filtration is expected to increase for full technical-scale bioreactors. IMPLICATIONSWith interest in biological techniques for air pollution control increasing, the true costs associated with the construction and operation of full-scale biological trickling filters are a fundamental criteria to evaluate the competitiveness of biotrickling filtration over more conventional air pollution control technologies. The present paper compares costs that were evaluated from a conceptual scaleup with actual numbers from the construction and operation of a pilot/full-scale biotrickling filter. The results are placed in a general perspective for the deployment of large biotrickling filters.

Performance of a Pilot-Scale Biotrickling Filter in Controlling the Volatile Organic Compound Emissions in a Furniture Manufacturing Facility

“…9 • In addition, the performance of a field-scale BTF for the treatment of styrene vapor released from a bathtub manufacturing process has been investigated with successful results and stable performance even under high variations of concentration, composition, and after a 3-day shutdown. 10 • Scale-up, economic, and cost analyses of a pilot/ full-scale BTF have been studied, 11,12 and it has been shown that treatment costs are less than those of conventional techniques, and the capital expenses constitute a major part of the total cost.…”

Feasibility Analysis of Sustainability-Based Measures to Reduce VOC Emissions in Office Partition Manufacturing

“…It is noted that other methods to assess and compare measures for reductions of VOC emissions in industrial facilities have been investigated and applied [34][35][36][37][38], and some of these have the potential for use in extensions of the research reported here.…”

“…The authors may carry out such investigations in the future, based on methods described elsewhere [34][35][36][37][38]. …”

Treatment of Produced Waters Using a Surfactant Modified Zeolite/Vapor Phase Bioreator System

“…Products of the biodegradation include carbon dioxide, water and new biomass. This technology has several advantages for this application including high destruction efficiencies for many VOCs including BTEX compounds, low operating costs and minimal generation of undesirable byproducts (van Groenestijn and Hesselink, 1993;Deshusses and Webster, 2000). For instance, removal efficiencies of greater than 90% can be achieved at BTEX loads below 96 g/m 3 packing hr, (Lu, et al, 2000).…”