Removal of dilute volatile organic contaminants from gaseous waste streams using trickling biofilters
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States); and others
As increasingly stringent environmental regulations and oversight force emission reduction, dilute gaseous hydrocarbon waste streams remain the focus of remediation efforts for many industries. Advances in biotechnology hold promise for providing low-cost alternatives to more traditional, energy intensive treatment methods such as incineration and adsorption. Elucidation of engineering principles governing the behavior of such systems, combined with successful predictive modeling, will broaden their applicability. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed processes which exploit a microbial consortium to treat a mixture of 0.5% n-pentane and 0.5% isobutane in air. Since hydrocarbon gases are sparingly soluble in water, good mixing and high surface area between the gas and liquid phases are essential properties for biodegradation to be effective. A trickle-bed bioreactor (or trickling biofilter) has been operated continuously using n-pentane and isobutane as sole carbon and energy sources for over fifteen months to provide a high surface area (using a structured packing) with increased rates. Maximum degradation rates achieved thus far have been {approximately}60 g VOC/h/m{sup 3} in a single pass in this gas-continuous columnar system. Mass transfer coefficients comparable to literature values have also been measured for this reactor, with values being two to three times higher than those found in gas-recycle reactors.
- OSTI ID:
- 211683
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9509139-; TRN: 95:008324-0215
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 7. ACS special symposium: emerging technologies in hazardous waste management, Atlanta, GA (United States), 17-20 Sep 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Emerging technologies in hazardous waste management VII; Tedder, D.W. [ed.]; PB: 1352 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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