Styrene degradation along the bed height of perlite biofilter

Abstract

The whole bed height of a bio®lter was divided into four individual reactor stages in series. This con®guration permits a measurement of the leachate pH of each stage individually and minimizes interstage mixing of the immobilized culture. The extent to which the residence time of pollutant in the ®lter bed in¯uenced biodegradation characteristics and the composition of immobilized culture under conditions of a constant loading rate was studied using a perlite bio®lter having an internal diameter of 50 mm and the bed height of each stage being 27 cm. The residence time of pollutant in the bed had no in¯uence on the removal ef®ciency and the elimination capacity of the whole bio®lter although some changes of these parameters in the individual stages were observed. The bio®lter achieved an elimination capacity of 140 gm À3 h À1 at removal ef®ciencies greater than 90%. Degradation activity decreased the pH value of the leachate to 3.5±3.0. Microbial analyses showed that styrene was degraded by eukaryotic cells at low pH values. At pH values above 4.0 prokaryotes were also present in the mixed culture.

Steady-State Performance of an Activated Carbon Biofilter Degrading Styrene: Effects of Residence Time and Inlet Concentration

“…Changes of the residence time and the C in of styrene thus had very little effect on the overall performance characteristics. This system stability was not just a consequence of the high sorption capacity of the GAC used as packing; the loading at EBRT of 15 with those in this study, it is evident that the activated carbon enabled high and stable EC values at REs above 90% regardless of the pollutant contact time in the reactor bed. The positive effect of the packing material (GAC) on degradation parameters and performance under fluctuating concentration has already been described for toluene, 16 -18 methyl ethyl ketone, 19 and odors and solvents.…”

“…A comparison with our previous results 15 achieved in the same reactor configuration using perlite as a packing instead of GAC is not possible because of a much shorter time of experiments (shorter time interval necessary for an achievement of the steady states among the rates of adsorption, desorption, and biodegradation) and also a much lower OL of 140 g C ⅐ m Ϫ3 hr Ϫ1 . Dividing the bed height into several sections permitted not only measurement of pollutant removal in each section but also other characteristics.…”

Removal of multicomponent VOCs in off-gases from an oil refining wastewater treatment plant by a compost-based biofilter system

“…Most commercial applications before 1990, however, were for the control of odors [6,7]. In the past decades, many studies have shown that biofiltration can be applied successfully to control or eliminate VOCs [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Song et al reported that the microbial response and elimination capacity in biofilters are subjected to high toluene loadings [15].…”

Effects of nitrogen source and empty bed residence time on the removal of styrene gaseous emissions by biotrickling filtration

“…Styrene is a widely produced aromatic hydrocarbon that is mainly used in the chemical sector for the production of polystyrene, styrene copolymers and polyester resins [1].…”