Biological Control Of Air Pollution

1. Biological Control Of Air Pollution

2. Contents • Air pollution • Sources of air pollution • The problem • Control • History • Biological waste Gas purification system • Factors affecting • Recent work • Microbial deodorization

3. Air pollution • Air supplies us with oxygen that is essential for our bodies to live • Air is 99.9%nitrogen, oxygen, water vapours and inert gases. • But human activities release substances into the air, some of which can cause problems for humans, plants and animals. • Effects include smog, acid rain, green house effect, and holes in ozone layer.

4. Sources of air pollution • Source of air pollutants may be industries, municipal, agricultural, transport and commercial activities. • Vehicular pollution is significant for urban area. Principal pollutants are carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen and suspended particulate matter.

5. The Problem • Sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulate matter are the major components of air pollutants • Pollution is sensed by people by offensive odour far before their the damage there from. • Waste gases which have an offensive odour may be generated during the production process or they may be coming from open wastewater treatment plants and garbage composting plants. • Other industries responsible are pesticide industry, petrochemical industry, explosives industry, fermentation plants etc.

6. Control of this problem Control processes are roughly classified as: • Physical methods- water washing, adsorption, absorption, thermal incineration, catalytic incineration • Chemical methods- catalytic oxidations Physical and chemical methods are not flexible for volume, concentrations, or composition of gas changes that may occur. This can be overcome by biological control of air pollution.

7. History • Biological purification was discussed as early as 1923 for H2S emissions • Biofilteration process has been exhaustively described by Ottengraf and cow workers • Wheatley suggested that prototype units for waste gases will most likely become part of existing waste water treatment plants.

8. Biological waste gas purification systems There are three types of system in operation: • Bioscrubbers • Biofilters, Biobeds • Biotrickling filters

9. Bioscrubbers • Design: It consists of an absorption column and one or more bioreactors. • Operation: The reaction tanks are aerated and supplied with nutrient solution. The microbial mass remains in the circulating liquor which passes through the absorption column. Waster air to be aerated is first brought to a temperature range of 10-43oC suitable for microorganisms. Dust in air, if any, should be removed by the filter in the line.

10. Use: Applied in the food industry, in rendering plants, livestock farming, foundries. Advantages: it is suitable for water soluble hydrocarbons. Use of activated carbon in the absorber improves mass transfer, buffer capacity and immobilization of microorganisms. Disadvantages: require a lot of skilled attention. Emission of microorganisms is considered to be the risk involved. Status: considered to be of concern by the food industry and pharmaceutical industry.

11. Biofilters (Biobeds) • Design: Biofilteration uses microorganisms fixed to a porous medium to break down pollutants present in an air stream. The microorganisms grow in a biofilm on the surface of a medium or are suspended in the water phase surrounding the medium particle. The filter bed medium consists of relatively inert substances (compost, peat, etc.) which ensure large surface attachment areas and additional nutrient supply.

12. Operation: Contaminated air is humidified and passed through a packed bed and pollutant transfers into a thin biofilm and degrade the pollutant. They are systems that use a combination of processes: absorption, adsorption, degradation and desorption of gas phase contaminants. • Conditions: Microorganisms used are mesophilic, Temperature 15-400C, moisture 40-60% and gas contact time 10-30 sec

13. Use: used in treating malodorous compounds and water soluble Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) Industries employing this technology include food and animal products, pharmaceuticals, wood products, paint and coating applications, resin manufacturing. Compounds treated are typically mixed VOCs and sulfur compounds, including hydrogen sulfide. • Advantages: simple design to construct and operate and offer a cost effective solution provided the pollutant is biodegradable within a moderate time frame. There is no secondary pollution

14. Disadvantages: high loading and degradation rate, humidification is problematic. Chlorinated hydrocarbons can not be removed by biofilters as dechlorination cause acidification of packing material. • It is most accepted technique among three techniques

15. Expected developments: - use of specific microorganisms - reduction in cost -Process control (pH, moisture, rate limiting nutrients) - more standardization - use for air flows over 100,000 m3/h

16. Biotrickling filters • Design: represent an intermediate technology between biofilters and bioscrubbers. Once again, an engineered vessel holds a quantity of filter medium, but in this case, it is an inert material, often clinker or slag. Being highly resistant to compaction, this also provides a large number of void spaces between particles and a high surface area relative to the overall volume of the filter.

17. Operation: Microbes form an attached growth biofilm on the surfaces of the medium. Odorous air is again forced through the filter, while water simultaneously recirculates through it, trickling down from the top. Counter-current flow is established between the rising gas and the falling water which improves the efficiency of dissolution. Biofilm communities feed on substances in the solution passing over them, biodegrading the constituents of the smell.

18. They have limited applications. Degradation of halogenated hydrocarbons, NH3, H2S etc., encounters situation of acid production. They will have to be neutralized, otherwise it has an inhibitory effect on the microbiological process, e.g., CH2Cl2 + 2HCl  CO2 +2HCl (Hypomicrobium spp). • Trickling filters can be used to solve the problem of acid, acid being inhibitory.

19. Factors affecting biological treatment • It depends on physical phenomena and microbiological phenomena. • Physical phenomena include: - Mass transfer between gas and liquid phase - Mass transfer to microrganisms - Average residence time of mobile phase. • Microbiological phenomena include: - Rate of degradation - Substrate/ product inhibition - Diauxy

20. Aerobic degradation by pure cultures

21. Recent work • The Envirogen Inc., has developed a biocatalytic route for degradation of trichloroethylene (TCE). A pure culture of Pseudomonas is used. Bacteria are kept alive on toulene and phenol. First field trial was carried out in New York and 90% of TCE in contaminated air from air stripper treating ground water was successfully degraded • The company also has a process where genetically engineered E.coli can be fed on glucose and is not a competitive substrate as phenol and toulene for Pseudomonas.

22. Biocube: The EG and G Rotron (New York) and US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering Lab have developed a process of aerobic Biofilteration (biocube). It employs naturally occurring microorganisms, mostly Actinomycetes and Pseudomonas to remove more than 90% of aliphatic and aromatic substances and their derivatives from gas streams. Biocube filter beds are modular trays filled with soil; compost mixture containing microorganisms. Beds are kept moist and at proper temperature so that biofilm develops on the surface.

23. Styrene is a hazardous air pollutant. Envirogen Inc. is scaling up their Biofilteration system. Here naturally occurring microorganisms are immobilized on a porous filter substrate such as compost or peat. Concentrated vapour stream passes through the filter bed, pollutants from vapour phase are transferred to the biofilm and are oxidized to CO2 and water. • The Dowa mining company, Japan uses Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, oxidizes Fe+2 to Fe+3 for energy and gives solid sulphur from H2S. It is used as exhaust system for H2S. It has potential applications In petroleum and chemical based industries and works on one third of the cost.

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