A Novel Bioreactor for the Biodegradation of Toxic Aromatic Solvents

Abstract

As one of the main industrial pollutants, aromatic solvents such as benzene, toluene, and xylenes (collectively known as BTX) have been causing the detrimental effects on environment 1-5]. Much effort has been made on the elimination of these compounds from a waste stream, and various methods have been reported [3-5]. In biological treatment system, three types of processes have been developed: bioscrubber, trickling filter, and biofilter[3,5]. Because of low solubility in water and high volatility, BTX are usually fed into the degradation process in gas phase with air stream [3]. In conventional processes, however, volumetric degradation rate was relatively low, less than 0.04 g/L/h, and efficient control of operational conditions such as moisture content in the bed and transfer rate of compounds to be treated was reported to be difficult to realize [3].