Studies on the effect of different metabolic uncouples for enhancing the degradation rate of toluene in a biofilm reactor

Abstract

Biological control of air pollution has many operational and cost advantages over conventional physico-chemical methods in many industrial applications. Biofiltration is a biological Air Pollution Control Technology (APCT) frequently used for treating odour and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) such as Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl benzene and Xylene (BTEX) from waste air streams. It is a cost-effective approach to treat volatile organic compounds. However, one of the biggest challenges to overcome is the low volumetric degradation rate in traditional biofilters, which often makes the footprint excessive. Replacing the traditional biofilter where soil is a bed medium, with a biofilm and the application of metabolic uncouplers in biofiltration could improve the biodegradation rate of microorganisms, which in turn could increase the Surface Elimination Capacity (SEC). The addition of metabolic uncouplers to the growth system decreases the biomass growth whereas in energy-excess, non-growth systems like biofiltration, it is expected to increase the specific substrate uptake rate since the substrate requirement for maintenance energy should increase, which in turn should increase the SEC. newline