title: Reduction of ammonia and volatile organic compounds from food waste-composting facilities using a novel anti-clogging biofilter system.
abstract: The performance of a pilot-scale anti-clogging biofilter system (ABS) was evaluated over a period of 125days for treating ammonia and volatile organic compounds emitted from a full-scale food waste-composting facility. The pilot-scale ABS was designed to intermittently and automatically remove excess biomass using an agitator. When the pressure drop in the polyurethane filter bed was increased to a set point (50 mm H(2)O m(-1)), due to excess biomass acclimation, the agitator automatically worked by the differential pressure switch, without biofilter shutdown. A high removal efficiency (97-99%) was stably maintained for the 125 days after an acclimation period of 1 week, even thought the inlet gas concentrations fluctuated from 0.16 to 0.55 g m(-3). Due the intermittent automatic agitation of the filter bed, the biomass concentration and pressure drop in the biofilter were maintained within the ranges of 1.1-2.0 g-DCW g PU(-1) and below 50 mm H(2)O m(-1), respectively.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Soongsil University, Seoul 156-743, Republic of Korea. hwryu@ssu.ac.kr
authors.forename: Hee Wook
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Ryu
authors.forename: Kyung-Suk
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Tae-Ho
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000641:Ammonia / Q000032:analysis*; D005374:Filtration; D005502:Food; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D012037:Refuse Disposal / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D012987:Soil; D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds; D000641:Ammonia