title: Kinetic evaluation of removal of odorous contaminants in a three-stage biological air filter.
abstract: Biofiltration is a cost-effective technology for removing air contaminants from animal facilities. Kinetic analysis can be helpful in understanding and designing the process but has not been performed on full-scale filters treating complex mixtures. In this study, kinetics was investigated in a full-scale biological filter treating air pollutants from a pig facility. Due to the high air flow rates used in the filter, both a plug flow model and a model based on complete mixing were tested with respect to kinetic order and Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Application of these models only gave poor to moderate agreement with air filter removal data. Two alternative kinetic models (Stover-Kincannon model and Grau second-order model) adopted from wastewater biofiltration process analysis were introduced to analyze contaminant removal in the biological air filter. Data analysis demonstrated the applicability of these two models with a high degree of precision on contaminant removal in the biological air filter. Whereas the Stover-Kincannon model demonstrated that pollutant removal rates were related to the mass loading rates, the Grau second-order kinetic model indicated that the removal efficiencies were dependent on air loading rates. Therefore, the kinetic data can be used for comparing biofilter performances and for design purposes.
authors: Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Aarhus University, Blichers Allé 20, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark.
authors: Dezhao
authors: D
authors: Liu
authors: Michael Jørgen
authors: MJ
authors: Hansen
authors: Lise Bonne
authors: LB
authors: Guldberg
authors: Anders
authors: A
authors: Feilberg
mesh_terms: D005374:Filtration / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007700:Kinetics; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009812:Odorants