Performance of peat biofilters treating ethyl acetate and toluene mixtures under non-steady-state conditions

• Autores: F. J. Álvarez-Hornos, C. Gabaldón, V. Martínez-Soria, Paula Marzal Doménech, J. M. Penya-Roja
• Localización: Biotechniques for air pollution control: proceedings of the 2nd International Congress on Biotechniques for Air Pollution Control, A Coruña, Spain, October 3-5, 2007 / Christian Kennes (dir. congr.), María C. Veiga (dir. congr.), 2007, ISBN 978-84-9749-258-4, págs. 367-377
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • This paper presents the response of peat biofilters to loading changes corresponding to industrial practices such as overnight and weekend shutdowns, intermittent emission or inlet concentration peaks. Three laboratory-scale reactors fed with air contaminated with ethyl acetate, toluene or a 1:1 mixture of ethyl acetate and toluene were operated under 65 g m-3 h-1 inlet load and 60 s EBRT during 16 h/day, 5 days/week. Dynamic behavior after feed resumption after night and weekend closures showed a 1-2 h period of transient response to recover stable CO2 production values. No increase in VOC emission was observed, except for biofilters treating toluene for which a transient peak in VOC emission during 4-8 h after weekend closures was detected. More stressful conditions such as intermittent emissions (2 h-on/ 2 h-off, 16 h/day, 5 days/week), or inlet concentration peaks (40-min, 50% increase) were successfully handled in the biofilter treating only ethyl acetate; but deterioration in the operation was observed in presence of toluene. The system performance after 15-days starvation period was fully recovered in less than 8 h of re-acclimation period. Living and dead cells monitoring results are also presented.