Abstract
Industrial waste gases often contain with several different components. Treatment of these mixtures may lead to complicated interactions during biological degradation. Therefore, this investigation established the kinetic behavior of toluene/acetone mixture in biofiltration process. Continuous experiments were conducted in three laboratory scale trickle bed bioreactrors with different waste gas stream containing toluene, acetone, and toluene and acetone mixture respectively. The results indicated the accurate predictions of the concentration profiles of pollutants along the TBR and elimination capacity. Elimination capacity of acetone in TBR could reach up to 200 g/m3hr, and toluene could reach up to 103 g/m3hr with 95% removal efficiency. Furthermore, TBRs had higher removal efficiency and elimination capacity than biofilters as a consequence of higher biofilm density and specific area. In addition, the removal efficiency for pure component was better than the total removal efficiency for mixed pollutant because of substrate interaction and inhibition. Moreover, smaller toluene/acetone mixture ratio for treatment of mixed pollutants allowed for worse removal efficiency. Otherwise, to give an insight into the biofilm morphology, we could verify the predominated micoorganisms inside of TBRs. Results obtained in this study provided insight into the kinetic behavior of biofiltration.