Simultaneous Removal of Hexane and Ethanol from Air in a Biotrickling Filter—Process Performance and Monitoring Using Electronic Nose

Piotr Rybarczyk, Bartosz Szulczyński and Jacek Gębicki
Additional contact information
Piotr Rybarczyk: Department of Process Engineering and Chemical Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12 Street, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
Bartosz Szulczyński: Department of Process Engineering and Chemical Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12 Street, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
Jacek Gębicki: Department of Process Engineering and Chemical Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12 Street, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Biofiltration is a well-accepted method for the removal of malodorous compounds from air streams. Interestingly, the mechanisms underlying this process are not fully understood. The aim of this paper was to investigate the simultaneous removal of hydrophobic hexane with hydrophilic ethanol, resulting in the enhanced removal of hexane in the presence of ethanol. Investigations were performed in a peat-perlite packed biotrickling filter and the process performance was monitored using both gas chromatography and electronic nose techniques. The results indicate that the length as well as the efficiency of biofiltration during the start-up period depend on the feed composition, with higher efficiency obtained when hexane and ethanol were fed together from the process initiation. The experiments in the steady-state period present the biofilter performance when different ratios of hydrophilic to hydrophobic compounds were fed to the biofilter. The obtained results show the synergistic effects of the addition of a hydrophilic compound on the removal efficiency of hydrophobic hexane. The influence of the ratio of hydrophilic to hydrophobic compounds is discussed in terms of enhancing the mass transfer phenomena for hydrophobic volatile organic compounds.

Keywords: biotrickling filtration; biofiltration; hexane; ethanol; electronic nose (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/387/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/387/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:1:p:387-:d:304812

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().