Performance of a biofilter with compost and activated carbon based packing material for gas-phase toluene removal under extremely high loading rates

Munna Kumar; Balendu Shekher Giri; Ki-Hyun Kim; Rajendra Prasad Singh; Eldon R Rene; M Estefanía López; Birendra Nath Rai; Harinder Singh; Durga Prasad; Ram Sharan Singh

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2019.121317

Performance of a biofilter with compost and activated carbon based packing material for gas-phase toluene removal under extremely high loading rates

Bioresour Technol. 2019 Aug:285:121317. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2019.121317. Epub 2019 Apr 3.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India.
² Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India. Electronic address: balendushekher23@gmail.com.
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-Ro, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Municipal Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
⁵ UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, P. O. Box 3015, 2601 DA Delft, The Netherlands.
⁶ IES García Lorca, Fernando de Herrera, 11207 Algeciras, Cádiz, Spain.
⁷ Department of Chemical Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh 211004, India.

PMID: 30979643
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2019.121317

Abstract

The main aim of this work was to evaluate the performance of a biofilter packed with a mixture of compost and activated carbon, for gas-phase toluene removal under very high loading rates. Plaster of Paris was used as a binder to improve the mechanical strength and durability of the packing media. The biofilter was operated continuously for a period of ∼110 days and at four different flow rates (0.069, 0.084, 0.126 and 0.186 m^-3 h^-1), corresponding to toluene loading rates of 160-8759 g m^-3 h^-1. The maximum elimination capacity (EC) achieved in this study was 6665 g m^-3 h^-1, while the removal efficiency (RE) varied from ∼70 to >95% depending on the loading rate tested. The biofilter was able to remove >99% of toluene using Pseudomonas sp. RSST (MG 279053) as the dominant toluene degrading biocatalyst.

Keywords: Activated carbon; Biofilter; Compost; Elimination capacity; Gas-phase toluene; Plaster of Paris.

MeSH terms

Biodegradation, Environmental
Charcoal
Composting*
Filtration
Toluene*

Substances

Charcoal
Toluene