Biofiltration of toluene vapor under steady-state and transient conditions: Theory and experimental results

Microbial Community in a Biofilter for Removal of Low Load Nitrobenzene Waste Gas

“…Biofilters have been successfully applied to treat hydrophilic VOCs, such as styrene [4], ethanol [5], methanol [6], xylene isomers [7], hexane [8], toluene [9], phenol [10], methylamine [11], triethylamine [12], dimethylsulfide [13], and dichloromethane [14]. However, the low mass transfer of hydrophobic VOCs from the gas phase to the biofilm phase, which limits the supply of substrates to the microorganisms, results in low biodegradation rates of these compounds.…”

Analytical Expressions of Concentration of VOC and Oxygen in Steady-State in Biofilteration Model

“…Dehusses and Dunn [5] reports a transient biofilteration model which is based on the assumption that oxygen is in excess and the kinetics are of the Michaelis-Menten or Monod type. The steady-state model of Zarook et al [3] was extended to describe the transient performance [6] of the biofilters. All the steady-state and transient biofilteration models [1][2][3][4][5][6] are based on the assumption that substrates are transported into the biofilm through diffusion.…”

“…The steady-state model of Zarook et al [3] was extended to describe the transient performance [6] of the biofilters. All the steady-state and transient biofilteration models [1][2][3][4][5][6] are based on the assumption that substrates are transported into the biofilm through diffusion. Biological systems for elimination of VOCs have been explored both on the experimental and mathematical modeling levels primarily in the Netherlands by Ottengraf et al [6][7][8] followed by many researches even though land area requirements and lack of process control still restrict the industrial use of these systems.…”

“…All the steady-state and transient biofilteration models [1][2][3][4][5][6] are based on the assumption that substrates are transported into the biofilm through diffusion. Biological systems for elimination of VOCs have been explored both on the experimental and mathematical modeling levels primarily in the Netherlands by Ottengraf et al [6][7][8] followed by many researches even though land area requirements and lack of process control still restrict the industrial use of these systems. Several researchers [1,3,6,[9][10][11][12][13] developed models to predict biodegradability of organic compounds in biofilters.…”

“…Biological systems for elimination of VOCs have been explored both on the experimental and mathematical modeling levels primarily in the Netherlands by Ottengraf et al [6][7][8] followed by many researches even though land area requirements and lack of process control still restrict the industrial use of these systems. Several researchers [1,3,6,[9][10][11][12][13] developed models to predict biodegradability of organic compounds in biofilters. The three general plans for biological treatment systems are biofilters, biotrickling filters and bioscrubbers.…”