Wood Bark as Packing Material in a Biofilter used for Air Treatment

Abstract

Biotechnology has been applied to find green and low cost environmental processes. In the waste gas treatments (odours and volatile organic compounds VOC) one of the main biological systems used is biofilters. This technology works at normal operating conditions of temperature and pressure, and therefore it is relatively cheap with high efficiencies when the waste gas is characterized by high flow and low pollutant concentration. The aim of this work is to use wood barks (Pinus) as packing material in the biofilter. For this purpose, the influence of various parameters such as residence time of the gas and pollutant loads on removal efficiencies was studied for a biofilter pilot unit. Ethanol, methyl ethyl ketone, dichloromethane and toluene were used as pollutant compounds, because they are representative of both volatile organic compounds. Packing material stability and good biodegradation performances were found.

Characterization and biological abatement of diffuse methane emissions and odour in an innovative wastewater treatment plant

“…No significant compaction was observed, in accordance with the good stability expected for packing materials comprising mainly wood bark chips. [27] From the results previously published in literature dealing with the biofiltration of diffuse methane emissions, only few works have used similar packing media as the formulation used in this work, which is considered as a very interesting option due to its affordable cost, at these low EBRTs. Du Plessis et al [28] obtained REs up to 70% with a similar range of methane inlet concentrations (0.1-2.5%), employing a similar support nature but working at higher EBRTs (20-400 min).…”

Assessment of porosity and biofilm thickness in packed beds using porous media models

“…3 is questionable for packed beds filled with parallelepipedal particles such as woods chips, a material sometimes used in biofiltration [24][25][26]. In order to take into account the peculiarity of such particles, Comiti and Renaud proposed another general model adapted to the particular structure of this type of bed.…”

Biological technologies for the treatment of atmospheric pollutants

“…Packing material governs the cost-efficiency of packed bed-based biotechnologies as it determines pollutant mass transfer rates (e.g. gasliquid turbulence and interfacial areas) and a significant part of the operating cost (packing media replacement and energy needed to overcome the pressure drop) [21,62]. The maximum recommended pressure drop across the packed bed in biofilters or biotrickling is often set at 980 Pa m -1 bed due to energy consumption constraints [1].…”