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Bioremediation of contaminated air using an external‐loop airlift bioreactor
Author(s) -
Wei Vicky Q.,
Hill Gordon A.,
Macdonald Douglas G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.5450770524
Subject(s) - bioreactor , airlift , bioremediation , effluent , chemistry , pulp and paper industry , environmental science , contamination , waste management , environmental chemistry , environmental engineering , engineering , biology , organic chemistry , ecology
Biological air treatment methods are gaining popularity in the chemical industries due to their low cost and ability to convert many hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into harmless byproducts. An external loop, airlift bioreactor (ELAB) is used to separately bioremediate two prototype, water‐soluble VOC compounds: p ‐cresol and ethanol. In both cases, the effluent air was cleansed and bioremediated to below detectable limits (beyond 99.7% removal) due to the efficient scrubbing action of the ELAB. The bioreactor continued to provide this removal efficiency up to maximum air p ‐cresol concentration of 0.6 g/m 3 and ethanol concentration of 110 g/m 3 and at bioreactor loading rates up to 8 g/m 3 h for p ‐cresol and 220 g/m 3 h for ethanol. A dynamic and quasi‐steady state, biokinetic model is shown to predict the transient bioremediation process very well using batch growth biokinetic parameters.