Biofiltration of Mixtures of Volatile Organic Compounds Emitted from Pulp and Paper Industries, 1998 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Madjid Mohseni & D. Grant Allen

Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry

Pulp & Paper Centre

University of Toronto

The treatment of hydrophilic and hydrophobic volatile organic compounds discharged in pulp, paper, and wood product air emissions was studied using biofilters with wood-based media. The experimental approach involved operating two bench scale biofilters with media consisting of a mixture of compost and wood chips. This medium was further amended with perlite and wood chips (both 4 mm size) for the first and second biofilters, respectively.

The experiment was conducted at loading rates of 0-50 g a-pinene/m 3 bed medium/h and 0-280 g methanol/m 3 bed medium/h. Under steady state conditions and at 40°C bed temperature, the biofilters performed similarly and treated up to 40-45 g a-pinene/m 3 bed medium/h or 250 g methanol/m 3 bed medium/h with percentage removals of more than 90-95% and gas retention times between 20 and 60 sec. For mixtures of methanol and a-pinene, the removal rate was measured based on the total carbon and was about 70-80 g carbon/m 3 bed medium/h. For the treatment of mixed VOCs, the presence of methanol in the air stream significantly influenced the removal of a-pinene in that its removal capacity per unit volume of the bed reduced extensively, whereas methanol removal was not affected by the presence of a-pinene.