Treatment of mixtures of toluene and n-propanol vapours in a compost-woodchip-based biofilter.
ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY 2012;
33:751-760. [PMID:
22720398 DOI:
10.1080/09593330.2011.592226]
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Abstract
The present work describes the biofiltration of mixture of n-propanol (as a model hydrophilic volatile organic compound (VOC)) and toluene (as a model hydrophobic VOC) in a biofilter packed with a compost-woodchip mixture. Initially, the biofilter was fed with toluene vapours at loadings up to 175 g m(-3) h(-1) and removal efficiencies of 70%-99% were observed. The biofilter performance when removing mixtures of toluene and n-propanol reached elimination capacities of up to 67g(toluene) m(-3) h(-1) and 85 g(n-propanol) m(-3) h(-1) with removal efficiencies of 70%-100% for toluene and essentially 100% for n-propanol. The presence of high n-propanol loading negatively affected the toluene removal; however, n-propanol removal was not affected by the presence of toluene and was effectively removed in the biofilter despite high toluene loadings. A model for toluene and n-propanol biofiltration could predict the cross-inhibition effect of n-propanol on toluene removal.
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