Biofiltration of a-Pinene and its Application to the Treatement of Pulp and Paper Air Emissions, 1997 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Biofiltration has been successfully applied to remove alpha-pinene, a very hydrophobic VOC discharged in pulp and paper and wood products emissions, from a contaminated air stream. Two identical bench scale biofilters were utilized for more than four months of experiment. The biofilter medium consisted of a mixture of wood chips and spent mushroom compost that was amended with either perlite, for the first biofilter, or activated carbon, for the second biofilter. The experiment was conducted at loading rates between 5 and 40 g alpha-pinene/m 3 bed medium/h. Under steady state operating conditions, both biofilters, amended with perlite and GAC, performed similarly and provided removal rates of up to 30- 35 g alpha-pinene/m 3 bed medium/h with gas retention times as low as 30 sec. The adsorption characteristics of GAC were significant only during the start-up period where the GAC biofilter had a significantly better performance than the perlite biofilter. When the biofilters were subjected to a sudden increase in the loading rate, the performance of the biofilters decreased significantly. The reacclimation period, however, was not long and the biofilters reached more than 99% removal within less than 48 hours of the spike load.