Fungal Biofiltration of Toluene on Ceramic Rings

Aizpuru, Aïtor; Dunat, Bertrand; Christen, Pierre; Auria, Richard; García-Peña, E.I.; Revah, Sergio

doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9372(2005)131:3(396)

Cited by 59 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Previous results (9) have shown that a biofilter inoculated with a fungal strain (reported as Scedosporium apiospermum TB1 but recently reclassified as Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145) reached and maintained high elimination capacities (EC) of toluene (higher than 200 g/m 3 of biofilter/h, with a removal efficiency of 98%). The maximum EC of toluene, around 245 g/m 3 of biofilter/h, was obtained with the same strain growing on porous ceramic rings (1). The biofilter exhibited bacterial contamination, but fungal activity was responsible for about 70% of total removal.…”

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confidence: 78%

Correlation of Biological Activity and Reactor Performance in Biofiltration of Toluene with the Fungus Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145

García-Peña

Hernández

Auria

et al. 2005

Appl Environ Microbiol

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A biofiltration system inoculated with the mold Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145 showed a toluene elimination capacity (EC) of around 250 g/m 3 of biofilter/h, which was higher than the values usually reported for bacteria. P. variotii assimilated m-and p-cresols but not the o isomer. Initial toluene hydroxylation occurred both on the methyl group and through the p-cresol pathway. These results were corroborated by detecting benzyl alcohol, benzaldehyde, and p-cresol as volatile intermediates. In liquid cultures with toluene as a substrate, the activity of toluene oxygenase (TO) was 5.6 nmol of O 2 /min/mg of biomass, and that of benzyl alcohol dehydrogenase was 16.2 nmol of NADH/min/mg of protein. Toluene biodegradation determined from the TO activity in the biofilter depended on the biomass distribution and the substrate concentration. The specific enzymatic activity decreased from 6.3 to 1.9 nmol of O 2 /min/mg of biomass along the reactor. Good agreement was found between the EC calculated from the TO activity and the EC measured on the biofilter. The results were confirmed by short-time biofiltration experiments. Average EC measured in different biofiltration experiments and EC calculated from the TO activity showed a linear relation, suggesting that in the biofilters, EC was limited by biological reaction. As the enzymatic activities of P. variotii were similar to those reported for bacteria, the high performance of the fungal biofilters can possibly be explained by the increased transfer of the hydrophobic compounds, including oxygen, from the gas phase to the mycelia, overcoming the transfer problems associated with the flat bacterial biofilms.Studies of biofiltration show that bacterial biofilms can degrade low concentrations of volatile organic compounds from off-gas streams (7,19). Recent work has demonstrated that biofilters containing fungi effectively eliminate volatile organic compounds, even under adverse environmental conditions such as low moisture content, low pH, and transient loadings (5,18,24,26,28). Previous results (9) have shown that a biofilter inoculated with a fungal strain (reported as Scedosporium apiospermum TB1 but recently reclassified as Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145) reached and maintained high elimination capacities (EC) of toluene (higher than 200 g/m 3 of biofilter/h, with a removal efficiency of 98%). The maximum EC of toluene, around 245 g/m 3 of biofilter/h, was obtained with the same strain growing on porous ceramic rings (1). The biofilter exhibited bacterial contamination, but fungal activity was responsible for about 70% of total removal. Woertz et al. Five metabolic pathways for toluene are known in bacteria (27). Toluene is initially hydroxylated on either the methyl group or the aromatic ring by an oxygenase. In fungi, initial hydroxylation on both molecular sites has also been reported. Some zygomycetes and deuteromycetes were shown to hydroxylate toluene at the aromatic ring, and the intermediates o-cresol and p-cresol were identified (21). Weber et al. (27) r...

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confidence: 78%

Correlation of Biological Activity and Reactor Performance in Biofiltration of Toluene with the Fungus Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145

García-Peña

Hernández

Auria

et al. 2005

Appl Environ Microbiol

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“…Kibazohi et al (2004) reported a hexane-removal biofilter packed with a mixture of 50% PM and 50% (v/v) perlite; however, biomass overgrowth caused a high pressure drop in the system and disintegration of PM particles was observed at the end of the experiment. Low pressure drop, (5.5 mmH 2 O m Paecilomyces variotii by the use of rigid ceramic rings (Aizpuru et al, 2005). In a previous work, we reported the synthesis of mechanically resistant composites containing poly(ethylene ether carbonate) (PEEC) grafted to PM and pine sawdust (PS).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal removal of gaseous hexane in biofilters packed with poly(ethylene carbonate) pine sawdust or peat composites

Hernández-Meléndez

Bárzana

Arriaga

et al. 2008

Biotech & Bioengineering

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The removal of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in biofilters packed with organic filter beds, such as peat moss (PM) and pine sawdust (PS), frequently presents drawbacks associated to the collapse of internal structures affecting the long-term operation. Poly(ethylene ether carbonate) (PEEC) groups grafted to these organic carriers cross linked with 4,4'-methylenebis(phenylisocyanate) (MDI) permitted fiber aggregation into specific shapes and with excellent hexane sorption performance. Modified peat moss (IPM) showed very favorable characteristics for rapid microbial development. Water-holding capacity in addition to hexane adsorption almost equal to the dry samples was obtained. Pilot scale hexane biofiltration experiments were performed with the composites after inoculation with the filamentous fungus Fusarium solani. During the operation of the biofilter under non-aseptic conditions, the addition of bacterial antibiotics did not have a relevant effect on hexane removal, confirming the role of fungi in the uptake of hexane and that bacterial growth was intrinsically limited by an adequate performance of the composites. IPM biofilter had a start-up period of 8-13 days with concurrent CO(2) production of approximately 90 g m(-3) h(-1) at day 11. The final pressure drop after 70 days of operation was 5.3 mmH(2)O m(-1) reactor. For modified pine sawdust (IPS) packed biofilter, 5 days were required to develop an EC of about 100 g m(-3) h(-1) with an inlet hexane load of approximately 190 g m(-3) h(-1). Under similar conditions, 12-17 days were required to observe a significant start-up in the reference perlite biofilter to reach gradually an EC of approximately 100 g m(-3) h(-1) at day 32. Under typical biofiltration conditions, the physical-chemical properties of the modified supports maintained a minimum water activity (a(w)) of 0.925 and a pH between 4 and 5.5, which allowed the preferential fungal development and limited bacterial growth.

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“…Cladosporium degraded both aromatic hydrocarbons (Weber et al, 1995;Kennes and Veiga, 2004) and C 6 -C 19 n-alkanes (Cofone et al, 1973;Arriaga and Revah, 2005a). Paecilomyces variotii and Paecilomyces variotii formerly classified as Scedosporium apiospermum degraded toluene (García-Peña et al, 2001;Aizpuru et al, 2005). Acremonium sp.…”

Section: Influence Of the Pollutant Switch On The Biofilm Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biofiltration of gasoline and diesel aliphatic hydrocarbons

Halecky

Rousova

Páca

et al. 2015

Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

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The ability of a biofilm to switch between the mixtures of mostly aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons was investigated to assess biofiltration efficiency and potential substrate interactions. A switch from gasoline, which consisted of both aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, to a mixture of volatile diesel n-alkanes resulted in a significant increase in biofiltration efficiency, despite the lack of readily biodegradable aromatic hydrocarbons in the diesel mixture. This improved biofilter performance was shown to be the result of the presence of larger size (C 9 -C 12 ) linear alkanes in diesel, which turned out to be more degradable than their shorter-chain (C 6 -C 8 ) homologues in gasoline. The evidence obtained from both biofiltration-based and independent microbiological tests indicated that the rate was limited by biochemical reactions, with the inhibition of shorter chain alkane biodegradation by their larger size homologues as corroborated by a significant substrate specialization along the biofilter bed. These observations were explained by the lack of specific enzymes designed for the oxidation of short-chain alkanes as opposed to their longer carbon chain homologues.Implications: Biological removal of petroleum hydrocarbons from contaminated air has not become a widely used technology due to its low efficiency. This paper presents the analysis of this problem using bench-scale experiments and provides several reasons for the low biodegradation efficiency of gasoline. The results reported suggest that gasoline removal efficiency strongly depends on the substrate composition, with aromatic hydrocarbons being removed preferentially. The study also opens up a new perspective for the efficient biofiltration of diesel hydrocarbons as opposed to gasoline, as higher molecular weight n-alkanes of diesel were removed readily. By contrast, low-molecular-weight n-alkanes of gasoline turned out to be poor substrates for biofiltration, and the biological reasons for this phenomenon were suggested.

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Fungal Biofiltration of Toluene on Ceramic Rings

Cited by 59 publications

References 22 publications

Correlation of Biological Activity and Reactor Performance in Biofiltration of Toluene with the Fungus Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145

Correlation of Biological Activity and Reactor Performance in Biofiltration of Toluene with the Fungus Paecilomyces variotii CBS115145

Fungal removal of gaseous hexane in biofilters packed with poly(ethylene carbonate) pine sawdust or peat composites

Biofiltration of gasoline and diesel aliphatic hydrocarbons

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