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Treatment of a gaseous mixture by biofilters filled with an inorganic packing material: performance and influence of inoculation on removal efficiency levels
Author(s) -
GadalMawart Aurélie,
Malhautier Luc,
Renner Christophe,
Rocher Janick,
Fanlo JeanLouis
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of chemical technology and biotechnology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1097-4660
pISSN - 0268-2575
DOI - 10.1002/jctb.3718
Subject(s) - biofilter , pollutant , stratification (seeds) , inoculation , chemistry , sulfur , filtration (mathematics) , pulp and paper industry , environmental chemistry , environmental science , environmental engineering , biology , botany , mathematics , seed dormancy , germination , statistics , organic chemistry , dormancy , engineering , immunology
BACKGROUND: The impact of inoculation on performance and subsequent community structure is a critical question in gas biofiltration processes. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of inoculation on biofilters packed with an inorganic medium and fed with a gaseous mixture (oxygenated and sulphur compounds). RESULTS: Inoculated biofilters (BF1 and BF2 duplicates) exhibit higher overall removal performances and lower removal height (oxygenated: 100% at 50 cm and sulphur: 55% at 100 cm) than control biofilters (PC) (oxygenated: 94% and sulphur: 39% at 100 cm). The concentration of compounds was measured along the bed height using two sampling lines. For each biofilter, the evolution of removal efficiency as a function of height differs and depends on the line considered. At steady‐state, a divergence is observed between the bacterial communities of BFs that exhibited a similar stratification pattern of removal efficiency. CONCLUSION: Inoculation of biofilters seems to bring enough diversity to allow the emergence of fitted species resulting in higher pollutants removal and to strengthen the heterogeneity of biodegradation activities distribution along the column height. The divergence of the microbial community structure in BF samples can be explained by low selective pressure and high resource availability which influence the community composition. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry