Elimination of butanal from odorous air by a labscale biofilter

Abstract

Butanal was chosen as a model compound for testing the performance of biofilters. It's a member of an important class of odour compounds released by waste water treatment plants of animal rendering and food processing industry. The influence of nutrient supplementation has been investigated using two identical wood bark biofilters. These biofilters were loaded with a synthetic waste gas, containing about 10 ppm (v/v) of butanal. On the first biofilter (biofilter 1) a nutrient solution was supplied. The second biofilter (biofilter 2) was operating without nutrient solution. During 12 weeks the biofilters were loaded with butanal at a volumetric load of 100 m3/m2 h. During this period a more regular removal and a larger mean elimination efficiency was obtained for biofilter 1 (97 %) than for biofilter 2 (86 %). Different loads were applied to evaluate the elimination capacity. An elimination capacity of 90.4g/m3 h was reached with nutrient supplementation. In absence of this supply the maximum elimination capacity was 74.5 g/m3 h.