Browse > Article

Bioactive Foam Reactors for the Enhanced Biological Degradation of Toluene  

Kim, Yong-Sik (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea University)
Son, Young-Kyu (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea University)
Khim, Jee-Hyung (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea University)
Song, Ji-Hyeon (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sejong University)
Publication Information
Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers / v.27, no.5, 2005 , pp. 468-475 More about this Journal
Abstract
Biofilters packed with various materials have emerged as a sustainable technology for the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs); however, problems including low performance and clogging are commonly encountered. Recently, a bioactive foam reactor (BFR) using surfactants has been suggested to ensure efficient and stable VOCs removal performance. This study was mainly conducted to investigate the feasibility of BFRs using toluene as a model compound. Prior to bioreactor studies, a series of bottle tests were used to select a suitable surfactant for the BFR application. Experimental results of the batch bottle tests indicated that TritonX-100 was the most appropriate one among the surfactants tested, since it showed a minimal effect on the toluene biodegradation rate while the other surfactants lowered the toluene biodegradation rate significantly. Using the selected surfactant, the BFR performance was determined by changing operating parameters including gas residence time and toluene loading. As the gas residence time increased from 0.5 minutes to 2 minutes, the toluene removal efficiency increased from approximately 50% to 80%. In addition, an increase of the toluene loading from $38\;g/m^3/hr$ to $454\;g/m^3/hr$ resulted in a decrease of toluene removal efficiency from approximately 70% to 20%. The BFR had a maximum elimination capacity of $108\;g/m^3/hr$ for toluene, which was much higher than those generally reported in the literature. The high toluene-elimination performance indicates that the BFR be a potential alternative to the conventional, packed-type biofilters. However, the limitation of toluene solubilization and foam stability at either high or low gas flow rate are still problems to be challenged.
Keywords
VOCs; Surfactant; Bioactive Foam Reactor (BFR); Biocompatibility; Maximum Elimination Capacity;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Devinny, J. S., Deshusses, M. A. and Webster, T. S., Biofilteration for air pollution control, CRC Lewis Publishers, New York, pp. 10-15(1999)
2 Kan, E. and Deshusses, M. A., 'Development of foamed emulsion bioreactor for air pollution control,' Biotechnol. Bioeng., 84, 204-244(2003)
3 Chang, M., Huang, C., and Shu, H., 'Effects of surfactants on extraction of phenanthrene in spiked sand,' Chemosphere, 41, 1295 -1300(2000)   DOI   ScienceOn
4 Deeb, R. A. and Alvarez-Cohen, L., 'Temperature effect and substrate influence during the aerobic biotransformation of BTEX mixtures by toluene-enriched consortia and Rhodococcus rhodochrous,' Biotechnol. Bioeng., 62, 526 - 536(1999)   DOI   ScienceOn
5 Cserhati, T., Forgacs, E., and Oros G., 'Biological activity and environmental impact of anionic surfactants,' Environ. international, 28, 37 - 348(2002)
6 Kim, I., Park, J.-S., and Kim, K.-W., 'Enhanced biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using nonionic surfactants in soil slurry,' Appl. Geochem., 16, 1419-1428(2001)   DOI   ScienceOn
7 Laurenzis, A., Heits, H., Wubker, S. M., Heinze, D., Friedrich, C., and Werner, U., 'Continuous biological waste gas treatment in stirred trickle-bed reactor with discontinuous removal of biomass,' Biotechnol. Bioeng., 57, 497 - 503(1998)   DOI   ScienceOn
8 Ridgway, H. F., Safarik, J., Phipps, D., Carl, P., and Clark, D., 'Identification and catabolic activity of wellderived gasoline-degradation bacterial from a contaminated aquifer,' Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 56, 3565-3575(1990)   PUBMED
9 Cherry, R. S. and Thompson, D. N., 'The shift from growth to nutrient-limited maintenance kinetics during acclimation of a biofilter,' Biotechnol. Bioeng., 56, 330 - 339(1997)   DOI   ScienceOn
10 Maurice, R., Handbook of Surfactants 2nd Ed., Porter & Associates(1994)
11 Hill, R. M., 'Siloxane surfactant,' Silicone surfactants, Hill, R. M., (Eds.), Marcel Dekker Inc., New York(1999)
12 Yeh, D. H., Pennell, K. D., and Pavlostathis, S. G., 'Effect of Tween surfactants on methanogenesis and microbial reductive dechlorination of hexachlorobenzene,' Environ. Toxicol. Chem., 18, 1408 - 1416(1999)   DOI
13 Song, J. and Kinney, K. A., 'Effect of vapor-phase bioreactor operation on biomass accumulation, distribution, and activity,' Biotechnol. Bioeng., 68, 508-516 (2000)   DOI   ScienceOn
14 Saba, F., Schneider, T., and Fischer, K., 'Improvement and application of high-efficiency biofilters,' In proceedings of the 1995 USC-TRG conference on biofiltration. Tustin, CA, pp. 217 - 224(1995)
15 Deshpande, S., Shiau, B. J., Wade, D., Sabatini, D. A., and Harwell, J. H., 'Surfactant selection for enhancing ex situ soil washing,' Water Res., 33, 351-360(1999)   DOI   ScienceOn
16 Cox, H. H. J. and Deshusses, M. A., 'Biomass control in waste air biotrickling filters by protozoan predaion,' Biotechnol. Bioeng., 62, 216-224(1999)   DOI   ScienceOn
17 Phipps, D. W., 'Biodegradation of volatile organic contaminants from air using biologically activated foam,' US Patent, No. 5,714,379(1998)
18 Goudar, C., Strevett, L., and Grego, J., 'Competitive substrate biodegradation during surfactant-enhanced remediation,' J. Environ. Eng., 125, 1142 -1148(1999)   DOI
19 Deshusses, M. A. and Johnson, C. T., 'Development and validation of a simple protocol to rapidly determine the performance of biofilters for VOC treatment,' Environ. Sci. Technol., 34, 461-467(2000)   DOI   ScienceOn
20 Yang, C., Suidan, M. T., Zhu, X., and Kim, B. J., 'Com-parison of structures and performances of two types of rotating biofilters for VOC removal,' In proceedings of the 2002 1995 USC-TRG conference on biofiltration. Tustin, CA: The Reynolds Group., pp. 231 - 240(2002)