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Development of a modified differential biofiltration reactor with online sample and carbon dioxide monitoring system
Author(s) -
Detchanamurthy Swaminathan,
Gostomski Peter Alan
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.1674
Subject(s) - biofilter , pollutant , chemistry , toluene , carbon dioxide , environmental science , process engineering , waste management , environmental engineering , engineering , organic chemistry
Biofiltration is one of the air pollution control technologies (APCTs) used widely in treating the odorous and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Reliability and robustness in measuring the pollutant degradation rate and carbon dioxide production is considered most important in a biofiltration system. In this current work, a gas chromatography (GC) system and carbon dioxide analyser were introduced online to a lab scale differential biofiltration reactor with water content control. Toluene, one of the potential VOCs, was used as a model pollutant in our current study. The feasibility and limitations of online GC and CO 2 analyzer was evaluated by measuring the inlet and outlet toluene concentrations along with CO 2 concentrations and compared with the regular offline measurements. Furthermore, a simple diffusion system was proposed and used in the current work to improve the robustness of toluene vapour production. The results indicate that the modifications carried out in the lab scale biofiltration reactor and in the diffusion system improved the data collection and stability. This improved system can be used effectively in the lab scale biofiltration research. © 2012 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.