Investigation of Removal Capacities of Biofilters for Airborne Viable Micro-Organisms

Abstract

New emerging issues appears regarding the possible aerosolization of micro-organisms from biofilters to the ambient air. Traditional bioaerosol sampling and cultural methods used in literature offer relative efficiencies. In this study, a new method revolving around a particle counter capable of detecting total and viable particles in real time was used. This counter (BioTrak 9510-BD) uses laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) technology to determine the biological nature of the particle. The concentration of viable particles was measured on two semi-industrial pilot scale biofilters in order to estimate the Removal Efficiency in viable particles (REvp) in stable conditions and to examine the influence of pollutant feeding and relative humidification of the gaseous effluent on the REvp. The REvp of biofilters reached near 80% and highlighted both the stability of that removal and the statistical equivalence between two identical biofilters. Pollutant deprivation periods of 12 h, 48 h and 30 days were shown to have no influence on the biofilters’ removal capacity, demonstrating the robustness and adaptation capacities of the flora. In contrast, a 90-day famine period turned the biofilters into emitters of viable particles. Finally, the humidification of the effluent was shown to negatively influence the removal capacity for viable particles, as drying off the air was shown to increase the REvp from 60 to 85%.

Space disinfection using TiO2 photocatalyst reduces the incidence of febrile neutropenia in cancer patients

“…Chapter 5.1.6) [23], and the standards of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA Technical Report) [24]. The counter initially irradiated a 405nm UV laser to measure and categorize the particles based on their size (diameter range = 0.5-25 µm) [25]. The number of viable airborne microorganisms was measured by detecting two uorescence emission wavelengths induced by UV-irradiated tryptophan, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide + hydrogen, and ribo avin, which are the major metabolites associated with cell viability [25].…”

“…The counter initially irradiated a 405nm UV laser to measure and categorize the particles based on their size (diameter range = 0.5-25 µm) [25]. The number of viable airborne microorganisms was measured by detecting two uorescence emission wavelengths induced by UV-irradiated tryptophan, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide + hydrogen, and ribo avin, which are the major metabolites associated with cell viability [25]. Herein, measurements using the BioTrak counter consisted of 60 cycles of 1-minute measurements followed by 1-minute pauses.…”

Using circular economy principles to recycle materials in guiding the design of a wet scrubber-reactor for indoor air disinfection from coronavirus and other pathogens

“…The commercially available fabric filters and packed beds, despite having high bioaerosol removal efficiency ( Fig. 1 ), require high inactivation efficiency, otherwise incubation of bacteria and viruses may take place ( Di Natale et al, 2018 , Ghosh et al, 2015 , Miaskiewicz-Peska and Lebkowska, 2012 , Soret et al, 2018 ). Negative ion air purifiers (NIAPs) have also been criticised for their adverse health effects ( Liu et al, 2020 ).…”

A Scientometric Analysis of Research on Bio Filtration of Waste Gas Streams During 1989-2020

“…Some of the major factors that stimulus of removal of pollutants from air like, unending operation of biofilters (Rybarczyk et al 2019), high pollutants loading rate , packing material drought (Gopinath et al 2018), acid or base and significant nutrient (Salgar et al 2020). Due to in continuing process of biofilter with high pollutants loading rate, high removal of biofilter is connected to various concert parameters such as features of packing material, humidity of packing media (Sun et al 2020;Cheng et al 2019;Rahmat et al 2017;Soret et al 2018;Luenga et al 2017), pH of media (Lu et al 2002;Saucedo-Lucero and Revah, 2018), nutrient application (Son et al 2005;Dolphen et al 2020), and temperature (Li et al 2020;Mohammed et al 2017).…”