1

Introduction
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damages the natural environment into the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a complex dynamic natural gaseous system that is essential to support life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion due to air pollution has long been recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth's ecosystems. Indoor air pollution and urban air quality are listed as two of the world's worst pollution problems in the 2008 Blacksmith Institute World's Worst Polluted Places report Biofilters or bio-oxidation systems have been used for control of air emissions, primarily odors, since the 1960s. Those early uses in the U.S. were largely relegated to odor control, primarily H2S, mercaptans and skatols, from wastewater treatment facilities. The Europeans were more aggressive in applying biofilter systems to various industrial air emissions, again primarily for odor control in the close confines of European communities. Many of these applications were associated with food and fragrance odors from production facilities located in highly populated areas of Western Europe. During the 1980s and 1990s odor emissions control using biofilters increased dramatically in North America, however, virtually all of these bio-oxidation systems were installed without specific VOC or HAP pollutant emission limits. In the wood panel products industry, which includes plywood, OSB, particleboard, fiberboard, and straw board, HAP and VOC emissions from pressing and board cooler operations have been either largely uncontrolled (through the early 1990s) or controlled by some type of thermal oxidizer. Numerous thermal oxidizers (RTOs, RCOs, & TCOs) have been installed in the wood products industry and the operating cost (e.g. natural gas or fuel oil for combustion) is expensive. These units also generate oxides of nitrogen and additional carbon dioxide from the fuel that is combusted. Using bio-oxidation or biofiltration as an alternative control technology in this industry will satisfy the need for HAP control and may be appropriate for overall VOC control, while greatly reducing operating costs and emissions from auxiliary fuel combustion (compared to a thermal oxidizer). Typical cost savings for a 100,000 acfm thermal oxidizer emissions unit are substantial. The natural gas costs for operating a 100,000acfm (169,900m3/hr) RTO would be in the range of $800,000 to $900,000US annually at a price of $0.80/therm. Fossil fuel for RTO = 13mmBtu/hr = $104.00/hr Fossil fuel for Bio-unit = 0 Btu/hr = $0.00/hr Annual $$$s saved = $873,600.00 ($7/mmBtu CH4 & 8,000 hrs operation) Electricity for RTO higher than Bio-unit because of higher pressure drop & need for additional HP (RTO = 16 24 WC in., 250hp Bio-unit = 4 12, 150hp) RTO electricity 190kw/hr; Bio-unit 115kw/hr @$0.06/kwh RTO = $91,200; Bio-unit = $55,200 saving an additional $36,000

 TOTAL --- $900,000.00 Other advantages to bio-oxidation systems are: Low Maintenance: < 1.0 person-day/month, < Thermal Oxidizers (TOs) No NOx or CO emissions as with TOs CO2 from VOCs only (no CH4 burned), 70 to 95% lower CO2 than TOs Immediately accessible on down days, no cool down necessary as with TOs The multi-stage, BioReaction Industries (BRI), bio-oxidation system has been designed to and proven to provide >70% removal of total VOC (tVOC, FID method 25A) achieving the desired permitting status and meeting the U.S. EPAs Plywood and Composite Wood Products maximum achievable control technology (MACT) for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs; >90% Dre). Data from actual installations and laboratory simulations have shown VOC removal efficiencies (Dre) in excess of 90%. (see accompanying figures). In fact, BRIs latest installation for an OSB press has been declared BACT (best available control technology) by USEPA (or was it the State of Alabama?). BRI now has a biooxidation system designed to handle the hot dryer exhausts eliminating the massive dilution air introduction that has made the size and subsequent capital cost of bio-oxidation units prohibitive for dryer applications. The ultimate importance of using bio-oxidation units in the wood products industry, or any industry for that matter, results from the very low maintenance and very low operating cost when compared to the conventional emissions control devices, thermal oxidizers. These thermal oxidation devices, which have been draconically applied in the panel board industry, require large amounts of fossil fuel adding up to a significant annual cost of operation (at current prices the natural gas fuel could cost over $1,000,000US annually). Bio-oxidation systems on these types of emission sources require no additional fossil fuel and generally have fan horsepower requirements that are less than thermal oxidizers because of the low pressure drop across the units. The annual operating cost savings, when using a bio-oxidation system instead of a thermal oxidizer will actually pay for the biofilter in a relatively short time, generally less than three years. In addition, with the green house gas (GHG) emission issue gaining more press and attention, it seems clear that a smaller carbon footprint is desirable and a bio-oxidation system certainly provides a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions when compared to thermal oxidizers; and even if carbon footprint reduction is not a concern today, an examination of the operating and maintenance costs demonstrates how much fuel and money are to be saved by installing a bio oxidation system.A pollution solution from the earth for the earth It is no secret that environmental issues are on everyones mind and people in the wood industry are no exception. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. has introduced Maximum Achievable \ Control Technology (MACT) standards for the reduction of emissions and, according to industrial insiders, legislation in Canada is also in the works. The question then lies with companies on just how they are going to meet these standards. One of the options is bio-oxidation which, simplified, is a technology based on microbes that can remove both water-soluble and non-water soluble emissions from the air when it is passed through the bio-oxidation system.

Biological waste gas purification technology currently includes bioreactors known as biofilters, biotrickling filters, bioscrubbers, and membrane bioreactors. The mode of operation of all these reactors is similar. Air containing volatile compounds is passed through the bioreactor, where the volatile compounds are transferred from the gas phase into the liquid phase. Microorganisms, such as bacteria or fungi, growin this liquid phase and are involved in removing the compounds acquired from the air. The microorganisms responsible for the biodegradation usually grow as a mixture of organisms. Such a mixture of different bacteria, fungi and protozoa depends on a number of interactions and is often referred to as a microbial community. Microorganisms are generally organized in thin layers called biofilms. The pollutants in the air (such as toluene, methane, dichloromethane, ethanol, carboxylic acids, esters, aldehydes, etc.; Tolvanen et al., 1998) usually act as a source of carbon and energy for growth and maintenance of the microorganisms. Some waste gases, such as those produced during composting, are composed of many (often up to several hundred) different chemicals, such as alcohols, carbonyl compounds, terpenes, esters, organosulfur compounds, ethers, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, etc. (Tolvanen et al., 1998; Smet et al., 1999). The remarkable aspect of the microbial community is that it generally develops to a composition so that all these different chemicals are removed and metabolized simultaneously. Microorganisms also require essential nutrients and growth factors to function and produce new cells. These include nitrogen,phosphorous, sulfur, vitamins and trace elements. Most often these nutrientsand growth factors are not present in the waste gas and have to be supplied externally. Emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in the paint manufacturing industry (part of the Miscellaneous Organics NESHAP, MON Rule), have been established with more reasonably attainable destruction efficiency (Dre) than many of the earlier NESHAP/MACT (HAP) rules. Because many of the earlier MACTs dealt primarily with end-of-pipe controls and had little emphasis on pollution prevention (P2), Dres of 95% and greater were often required. This required the use of thermal oxidizers for most applications, virtually eliminating the potential for the use of biofilters as volatile organic compound (VOC) and HAP control devices. Biofilters had been used extensively in Europe and to a lesser degree in North America, primarily for the control of odors that often did not require meeting a specific Dre standard or permitted emission limit. With more emphasis on P2s in combination with Dres the biofilter can now be considered a viable option for HAP and VOC control to achieve compliance in a number of industries. Biofilter systems can now provide a lower cost, more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and sustainable control solution to address both VOC and HAP emissions. Forrest Paint of Eugene, Oregon agreed to a cost-sharing venture with Bio Reaction Industries LLC. (BRI) to prove this technology and act in a proactive manner to reduce their emissions prior to finalization of the MON MACT. BRI has, to our knowledge, successfully installed the first innovatively designed biofilter on the emission stream of a paint production unit at Forrest Paint. Installation and start-up of the unit commenced in December 2000. MACT rules have been in development by the EPA with input from APA-The Engineered Wood Association for quite some time, says Lisa Bailey, a research technologist with the APA in Tacoma, Washington. The rules fall under the Clean Air Act in section 112, and establish standards requiring the maximum degree of reduction in emissions of hazardous air pollutants. Set at 90 percent removal of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), the number was arrived at by looking at the dose and toxicity of the emission and calculating the risk it posed to the nearest person, called compliance based on risk. While MACT standards are now in place, industry and the EPA are currently working on what

is being called MACT two, following a court decision in a lawsuit by the National Resource Defense Council who said the risk option was not legal. Bio-oxidation differs from other emission reducing systems such as thermal oxidation because there isnt a need for natural gas to heat the device. MACT standards say you have to degrade 90 percent of the hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and we do it without burning natural gas, explains Mundorff. A company can say we want to put in a thermal oxidizer to treat the HAPs and thermal oxidizers do a very good job of that. They also cost a lot in operating expenses because of the natural gases used to heat the devices. They need a high temperature to burn/combust the HAPs. We can save a company all of that operating cost and also, by not combusting natural gas, we are not creating greenhouse gases. There is an environmental footprint we are reducing that the company wouldnt have if they didnt go with us. David Word, program manager at the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement Inc. in Florida, agrees that bio-oxidation systems are more economical for businesses and better for the environment because they dont require natural gas. They dont require regenerative thermal oxidizers, a form of incineration which needs a heat source to bring up the temperatures and oxidize them, he says. Bio-filters still use energy to make the air run through the system although they dont require fossil fuels to provide air for oxidation. Bio-oxidation systems are better for cleaner air and carbon dioxide. They dont emit carbon monoxide and they can help to reduce the levels of carbon monoxide in the air because of the bugs that live in them. To illustrate this point, Boswell said that a 100,000 ACFM thermal oxidizer would cost a plant one million dollars in natural gas per year. It would also cost 40-60 tons of NOx, and several thousand tons of CO2 per year, he says. When you use a bio-oxidizer there is an 80 percent reduction in CO2 and no NOx, SOx or CO are emitted. Biooxidizers also require a lower level of maintenance over time, says Mundorff. Our system is very simple to use. We can save a company up to 66 percent on their maintenance costs and on their pollution control costs. Boswell recommends adding a nutrient additive to the system, basically a fertilizer, so that the microbes dont run out of nitrogen on a weekly basis. This is added to the sump of the system and re-circulated throughout the entire process. ATC Panels is installing a 150,000 ACFM bio-filter from Bio-Reaction at their Franklin, Virginia plant, says corporate technical director Bruno Gorrini. They heard about bio-oxidation at composite panel meetings where MACT legislation and possible solutions were being discussed. He says they decided to use bio-oxidation over other system options because of the low operating cost, low maintenance and lack ofgas consumption that bio-oxidation systems offer.Freres Lumber in Lyons, Oregon also had a 50,000 ACFM biofilterfrom Bio-Reaction installed on their plywood presses because theoperating costs are lower and the machines are more environmentally friendly due to the fact that they dont burn fossil fuels. We chose Bio- Reaction because they were recommended to us, says vice-presidentKyle Freres. They could meet our time frame and are a local northwest company. He also stressed the importance of the lower carbon footprint of the system, saying everyone is becoming more environmentally conscious. People who are proactive are appreciative that we implemented measures and they realize that the companies that implement measures to combat pollution are the ones that are going to be around for the long haul.

ABSTRACT
Many of the NESHAP/MACT hazardous air pollutant (HAP) rules promulgated to date, often required the use of thermal oxidizer/incineration-type controls in order to meet the extremely stringent destruction efficiencies (Dre). Emission standards for the paint manufacturing industry, part of the Miscellaneous Organic NESHAP (MON Rule), are currently being promulgated with a more reasonably attainable Dre or emission removal level. Biofiltration can be applied to achieve, and potentially exceed the proposed standards, while providing a less costly, more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and sustainable control solution. Forrest Paint of Eugene, Oregon agreed to a cost-sharing venture with Bio-Reaction Industries LLC. (BRI) to prove this technology and act in a proactive manner to reduce their emissions prior to finalization of the MON MACT. BRI has, to our knowledge, successfully installed the first innovatively designed biofilter on the emission stream of a paint production unit at Forrest Paint. Installation and start-up of the unit commenced in December 2000. Test results indicate that the BRI biofilter will exceed the proposed MACT standard for destruction efficiency of those solvent compounds emitted from the paint manufacturing operations (toluene, xylene, hexane, ethylbenzene, MIBK, methanol, and benzene). The innovative, patented design with a fungal-based biomatrix is the key to maximization of the overall removal efficiency. In addition, the fungal-based biomatrix has been shown to be especially effective in biological oxidation of certain, specific organic compounds (xylene, toluene and benzene). Capital cost, is significantly less than for a thermal oxidizer, and operating costs are less than 10% of a comparably sized regenerative thermal oxidizer. Installation requirements, performance tests, monitoring data, energy requirements and technology comparisons will be presented.

History and design of bio-oxidation systems

Bio-oxidizers are one way for companies to comply with these rules and control emissions and BioReaction Industries in Tualatin, Oregon manufactures these systems. Karl Mundorff, President and CEO, says the main reason the company began making the systems was energy conservation and lowering the carbon footprint. The first applications of bio-oxidation began in the 1960s and were largely on odor control and wastewater treatment plants, says Dr. Jim Boswell, senior scientist with Bio-Reaction Industries. In the 70s and 80s, European countries, especially Belgium, Germany and France, began using the technologyon commercial and industrial applications. The technology started being used in the US during the late 1980s. Bio-Reaction installed its first unit, a 40,000 CFM multi-stage particleboard unit in Oregon,in 2001 and is currently installing 10 systems designed to meet MACT standards, says Boswell. Bio-Reaction Industries has modifiedits bio-oxidation units from the original design, explains Boswell. The microbe system consists of three stages, the biotrickling filter, bio-matrix chamber and sump. The bio-trickling filter makes up one-third of the systems size and media. This stage houses cross-flow media that has an open design to promote uniform distribution of the air. The media also supports microbial growth. This first stage is where the simple compounds that are easy to break down, such as alcohol, are eaten by the bacteria. Like us, says Boswell the bacteria prefer to eat things that are easy to digest and not that good for them, so its best to get them out of the system in the first stage so the more complex things can be eaten in the second stage of the process. The second stage known as the bio-matrix chamber makes up the other two-thirds of the system and is where more complex compounds such as terpene, pinene and benzene are consumed by the

microbes. The time it takes for the microbes to destroy more than 90 percent of the compounds can be as little as eight seconds for water soluble compounds. On tougher compounds it can be 20-45 seconds for 75-85 percent destruction. This stage where tougher compounds are disposed of is made of Bio-Reaction Industries patented structured biospheres. These spheres are filled with compost and provide a medium wherethe biological colonies can reside because of the mulch that has micronutrientsto keep the microbes healthy. The third part of the bio-oxidation system is the sump, which continuously re-circulates water throughout the system through the crossflowmedia that humidifies and removes water-soluble compounds.

What is Air Pollution?

Air is the ocean we breathe. Air supplies us with oxygen which is essential for our bodies to live. Air is 99.9% nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor and inert gases. Human activities can release substances into the air, some of which can cause problems for humans, plants, and animals. There are several main types of pollution and well-known effects of pollution which are commonly discussed. These include smog, acid rain, the greenhouse effect, and "holes" in the ozone layer. Each of these problems has serious implications for our health and well-being as well as for the whole environment. One type of air pollution is the release of particles into the air from burning fuel for energy. Diesel smoke is a good example of this particulate matter . The particles are very small pieces of matter measuring about 2.5 microns or about .0001 inches. This type of pollution is sometimes referred to as "black carbon" pollution. The exhaust from burning fuels in automobiles, homes, and industries is a major source of pollution in the air. Some authorities believe that even the burning of wood and charcoal in fireplaces and barbeques can release significant quanitites of soot into the air. Another type of pollution is the release of noxious gases, such as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and chemical vapors. These can take part in further chemical reactions once they are in the atmosphere, forming smog and acid rain. Pollution also needs to be considered inside our homes, offices, and schools. Some of these pollutants can be created by indoor activities such as smoking and cooking. In the United States, we spend about 80-90% of our time inside buildings, and so our exposure to harmful indoor pollutants can be serious. It is therefore important to consider both indoor and outdoor air pollution.

Pollutants
An air pollutant is known as a substance in the air that can cause harm to humans and the environment. Pollutants can be in the form of solid particles, liquid droplets, or gases. In addition, they may be natural or man-made. Pollutants can be classified as either primary or secondary. Usually, primary pollutants are substances directly emitted from a process, such as ash from a volcanic eruption, the carbon monoxide gas from a motor vehicle exhaust or sulfur dioxide released from factories. Secondary pollutants are not emitted directly. Rather, they form in the air when primary pollutants react or interact. An important example of a secondary pollutant is ground level ozone one of the many secondary pollutants that make up photochemical smog.

Figure 1. Schematic drawing, causes and effects of air pollution: (1) greenhouse effect, (2) particulate contamination, (3) increased UV radiation, (4) acid rain, (5) increased ozone concentration, (6) increased levels of nitrogen oxides Note that some pollutants may be both primary and secondary: that is, they are both emitted directly and formed from other primary pollutants. About 4 percent of deaths in the United States can be attributed to air pollution, according to the Environmental Science Engineering Program at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Carbon Dioxide

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the major pollutants in the atmosphere. Major sources of CO2 are fossil fuels burning and deforestation. "The concentrations of CO2 in the air around 1860 before the effects of industrialization were felt, is assumed to have been about 290 parts per million (ppm). In the hundred years and more since then, the concentration has increased by about 30 to 35 ppm that is by 10 percent". (Breuer 67) Industrial countries account for 65% of CO2 emissions with the United States and Soviet Union responsible for 50%. Less developed countries (LDCs), with 80% of the world's people, are responsible for 35% of CO2 emissions but may contribute 50% by 2020. "Carbon dioxide emissions are increasing by 4% a year". (Miller 450) In 1975, 18 thousand million tons of carbon dioxide (equivalent to 5 thousand million tons of carbon) were released into the atmosphere, but the atmosphere showed an increase of only 8 billion tons (equivalent to 2.2 billion tons of carbon". (Breuer 70) The ocean waters contain about sixty times more CO2 than the atmosphere. If the equilibrium is disturbed by externally increasing the concentration of CO2 in the air, then the oceans would absorb more and more CO2. If the oceans can no longer keep pace, then more CO2 will remain into the atmosphere. As water warms, its ability to absorb CO2 is reduced. CO2 is a good transmitter of sunlight, but partially restricts infrared radiation going back from the earth into space. This produces the so-called greenhouse effect that prevents a drastic cooling of the Earth during the night. Increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reinforces this effect and is expected to result in a warming of the Earth's surface. Currently carbon dioxide is responsible for 57% of the global warming trend. Nitrogen oxides contribute most of the atmospheric contaminants.

N0X - nitric oxide (N0) and nitrogen dioxide (N02)

Natural component of the Earth's atmosphere. Important in the formation of both acid precipitation and photochemical smog (ozone), and causes nitrogen loading. Comes from the burning of biomass and fossil fuels. 30 to 50 million tons per year from human activities, and natural 10 to 20 million tons per year. Average residence time in the atmosphere is days. Has a role in reducing stratospheric ozone.

N20 - nitrous oxide

Natural component of the Earth's atmosphere. Important in the greenhouse effect and causes nitrogen loading. Human inputs 6 million tons per year, and 19 million tons per year by nature. Residence time in the atmosphere about 170 years. 1700 (285 parts per billion), 1990 (310 parts per billion), 2030 (340 parts per billion). Comes from nitrogen based fertilizers, deforestation, and biomass burning.

Sulfur and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

Sulfur dioxide is produced by combustion of sulfur-containing fuels, such as coal and fuel oils. Also, in the process of producing sulfuric acid and in metallurgical process involving ores that contain sulfur. Sulfur oxides can injure man, plants and materials. At sufficiently high concentrations, sulfur dioxide irritates the upper respiratory tract of human beings because potential effect of sulfur dioxide is to make breathing more difficult by causing the finer air tubes of the lung to constrict. "Power plants and factories emit 90% to 95% of the sulfur dioxide and 57% of the nitrogen oxides in the United States. Almost 60% of the SO2 emissions are released by tall smoke stakes, enabling the emissions to travel long distances". (Miller 494) As emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide from stationary sources are transported long distances by winds, they form secondary pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, nitric acid vapor, and droplets containing solutions of sulfuric acid, sulfate, and nitrate salts. These chemicals descend to the earth's surface in wet form as rain or snow and in dry form as a gases fog, dew, or solid particles. This is known as acid deposition or acid rain.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

CFCs are lowering the average concentration of ozone in the stratosphere. "Since 1978 the use of CFCs in aerosol cans has been banned in the United States, Canada, and most Scandinavian countries. Aerosols are still the largest use, accounting for 25% of global CFC use". (Miller 448) Spray cans, discarded or leaking refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, and the burning plastic foam products release the CFCs into the atmosphere. Depending on the type, CFCs stay in the atmosphere from 22 to 111 years. Chlorofluorocarbons move up to the stratosphere gradually over several decades. Under high energy ultra violet (UV) radiation, they break down and release chlorine atoms, which speed up the breakdown of ozone (O3) into oxygen gas (O2). Chlorofluorocarbons, also known as Freons, are greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Photochemical air pollution is commonly referred to as "smog". Smog, a contraction of the words

smoke and fog, has been caused throughout recorded history by water condensing on smoke particles, usually from burning coal. With the introduction of petroleum to replace coal economies in countries, photochemical smog has become predominant in many cities, which are located in sunny, warm, and dry climates with many motor vehicles. The worst episodes of photochemical smog tend to occur in summer.

Smog
Photochemical smog is also appearing in regions of the tropics and subtropics where savanna grasses are periodically burned. Smog's unpleasant properties result from the irradiation by sunlight of hydrocarbons caused primarily by unburned gasoline emitted by automobiles and other combustion sources. The products of photochemical reactions includes organic particles, ozone, aldehydes, ketones, peroxyacetyl nitrate, organic acids, and other oxidants. Ozone is a gas created by nitrogen dioxide or nitric oxide when exposed to sunlight. Ozone causes eye irritation, impaired lung function, and damage to trees and crops. Another form of smog is called industrial smog. This smog is created by burning coal and heavy oil that contain sulfur impurities in power plants, industrial plants, etc... The smog consists mostly of a mixture of sulfur dioxide and fog. Suspended droplets of sulfuric acid are formed from some of the sulfur dioxide, and a variety of suspended solid particles. This smog is common during the winter in cities such as London, Chicago, Pittsburgh. When these cities burned large amounts of coal and heavy oil without control of the output, largescale problems were witnessed. In 1952 London, England, 4,000 people died as a result of this form of fog. Today coal and heavy oil are burned only in large boilers and with reasonably good control or tall smokestacks so that industrial smog is less of a problem. However, some countries such as China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and some other eastern European countries, still burn large quantities of coal without using adequate controls.

Major primary pollutants produced by human activity include:

Sulfur oxides (SOx) - especially sulfur dioxide, a chemical compound with the formula SO2. SO2 is produced by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide. Further oxidation of SO2, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as NO2, forms H2SO4, and thus acid rain.[2] This is one of the causes for concern over the environmental impact of the use of these fuels as power sources. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) - especially nitrogen dioxide are emitted from high temperature combustion. Can be seen as the brown haze dome above or plume downwind of cities. Nitrogen dioxide is the chemical compound with the formula NO2. It is one of the several nitrogen oxides. This reddish-brown toxic gas has a characteristic sharp, biting odor. NO 2 is one of the most prominent air pollutants. Carbon monoxide - is a colourless, odourless, non-irritating but very poisonous gas. It is a product by incomplete combustion of fuel such as natural gas, coal or wood. Vehicular exhaust is a major source of carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide (CO2) - a greenhouse gas emitted from combustion but is also a gas vital to living organisms. It is a natural gas in the atmosphere. Volatile organic compounds - VOCs are an important outdoor air pollutant. In this field they

are often divided into the separate categories of methane (CH4) and non-methane (NMVOCs). Methane is an extremely efficient greenhouse gas which contributes to enhanced global warming. Other hydrocarbon VOCs are also significant greenhouse gases via their role in creating ozone and in prolonging the life of methane in the atmosphere, although the effect varies depending on local air quality. Within the NMVOCs, the aromatic compounds benzene, toluene and xylene are suspected carcinogens and may lead to leukemia through prolonged exposure. 1,3-butadiene is another dangerous compound which is often associated with industrial uses.

Particulate matter - Particulates, alternatively referred to as particulate matter (PM) or fine particles, are tiny particles of solid or liquid suspended in a gas. In contrast, aerosol refers to particles and the gas together. Sources of particulate matter can be man made or natural. Some particulates occur naturally, originating from volcanoes, dust storms, forest and grassland fires, living vegetation, and sea spray. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants and various industrial processes also generate significant amounts of aerosols. Averaged over the globe, anthropogenic aerosolsthose made by human activitiescurrently account for about 10 percent of the total amount of aerosols in our atmosphere. Increased levels of fine particles in the air are linked to health hazards such as heart disease, altered lung function and lung cancer. Persistent free radicals connected to airborne fine particles could cause cardiopulmonary disease. Toxic metals, such as lead, cadmium and copper. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - harmful to the ozone layer emitted from products currently banned from use. Ammonia (NH3) - emitted from agricultural processes. Ammonia is a compound with the formula NH3. It is normally encountered as a gas with a characteristic pungent odor. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to foodstuffs and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many pharmaceuticals. Although in wide use, ammonia is both caustic and hazardous. Odors such as from garbage, sewage, and industrial processes Radioactive pollutants - produced by nuclear explosions, war explosives, and natural processes such as the radioactive decay of radon.

Secondary pollutants include:

Particulate matter formed from gaseous primary pollutants and compounds in photochemical smog. Smog is a kind of air pollution; the word "smog" is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Classic smog results from large amounts of coal burning in an area caused by a mixture of smoke and sulfur dioxide. Modern smog does not usually come from coal but from vehicular and industrial emissions that are acted on in the atmosphere by sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine with the primary emissions to form photochemical smog. Ground level ozone (O3) formed from NOx and VOCs. Ozone (O3) is a key constituent of the troposphere (it is also an important constituent of certain regions of the stratosphere commonly known as the Ozone layer). Photochemical and chemical reactions involving it drive many of the chemical processes that occur in the atmosphere by day and by night. At

11

abnormally high concentrations brought about by human activities (largely the combustion of fossil fuel), it is a pollutant, and a constituent of smog.

Peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) - similarly formed from NOx and VOCs.

Minor air pollutants include:

A large number of minor hazardous air pollutants. Some of these are regulated in USA under the Clean Air Act and in Europe under the Air Framework Directive. A variety of persistent organic pollutants, which can attach to particulate matter.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. Because of this, they have been observed to persist in the environment, to be capable of long-range transport, bioaccumulate in human and animal tissue, biomagnify in food chains, and to have potential significant impacts on human health and the environment.

Outdoor Air Pollution

Smog is a type of large-scale outdoor pollution. It is caused by chemical reactions between pollutants derived from different sources, primarily automobile exhaust and industrial emissions. Cities are often centers of these types of activities, and many suffer from the effects of smog, especially during the warm months of the year. Additional information about smog and its effects are available from Environment Canada and the Air Quality Management District (AQMD) in southern California. For each city, the exact causes of pollution may be different. Depending on the geographical location, temperature, wind and weather factors, pollution is dispersed differently. However, sometimes this does not happen and the pollution can build up to dangerous levels. A temperature inversion occurs when air close to the earth is cooler than the air above it. Under these conditions the pollution cannot rise and be dispersed. Cities surrounded by mountains also experience trapping of pollution. Inversion can happen in any season. Winter inversions are likely to cause particulate and cabon monoxide pollution. Summer inversions are more likely to create smog. Another consequence of outdoor air pollution is acid rain. When a pollutant, such as sulfuric acid combines with droplets of water in the air, the water (or snow) can become acidified . The effects of acid rain on the environment can be very serious. It damages plants by destroying their leaves, it poisons the soil, and it changes the chemistry of lakes and streams. Damage due to acid rain kills trees and harms animals, fish, and other wildlife. The Error! Hyperlink reference not valid., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Environment Canada are among the organizations that are actively studying the acid rain problem. The Greenhouse Effect, also referred to as global warming, is generally believed to come from the build up of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is produced when fuels are burned. Plants convert carbon dioxide back to oxygen, but the release of carbon dioxide from human activities is higher than the world's plants can process. The situation is made worse since many of the earth's forests are being removed, and plant life is being damaged by acid rain. Thus, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is continuing to increase. This buildup acts like a blanket and traps heat

close to the surface of our earth. Changes of even a few degrees will affect us all through changes in the climate and even the possibility that the polar ice caps may melt. (One of the consequences of polar ice cap melting would be a rise in global sea level, resulting in widespread coastal flooding.) Additional resources and information about the Greenhouse Effect and global warming are available from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. and the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ). Ozone depletion is another result of pollution. Chemicals released by our activities affect the stratosphere , one of the atmospheric layers surrounding earth. The ozone layer in the stratosphere protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) from aerosol cans, cooling systems and refrigerator equipment removes some of the ozone, causing "holes"; to open up in this layer and allowing the radiation to reach the earth. Ultraviolet radiation is known to cause skin cancer and has damaging effects on plants and wildlife. Additional resources and information about the ozone depletion problem are available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Ozone ACTION.

Indoor Air Pollution

Many people spend large portion of time indoors - as much as 80-90% of their lives. We work, study, eat, drink and sleep in enclosed environments where air circulation may be restricted. For these reasons, some experts feel that more people suffer from the effects of indoor air pollution than outdoor pollution. There are many sources of indoor air pollution. Tobacco smoke, cooking and heating appliances, and vapors from building materials, paints, furniture, etc. cause pollution inside buildings. Radon is a natural radioactive gas released from the earth, and it can be found concentrated in basements in some parts of the United States. Additional information about the radon problem is available from the USGS and the Minnesota Radon Project. Pollution exposure at home and work is often greater than outdoors. The California Air Resources Board estimates that indoor air pollutant levels are 25-62% greater than outside levels and can pose serious health problems. Both indoor and outdoor pollution need to How can we prevent the damaging effects of air pollution? be controlled and/or prevented.

How can air pollution hurt our health?

Air pollution can affect our health in many ways with both short-term and long-term effects. Different groups of individuals are affected by air pollution in different ways. Some individuals are much more sensitive to pollutants than are others. Young children and elderly people often suffer more from the effects of air pollution. People with health problems such as asthma, heart and lung disease may also suffer more when the air is polluted. The extent to which an individual is harmed by air pollution usually depends on the total exposure to the damaging chemicals, i.e., the duration of exposure and the concentration of the chemicals must be taken into account. Examples of short-term effects include irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, and upper respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Other symptoms can include headaches, nausea, and

13

allergic reactions. Short-term air pollution can aggravate the medical conditions of individuals with asthma and emphysema. In the great "Smog Disaster" in London in 1952, four thousand people died in a few days due to the high concentrations of pollution. Long-term health effects can include chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and even damage to the brain, nerves, liver, or kidneys. Continual exposure to air pollution affects the lungs of growing children and may aggravate or complicate medical conditions in the elderly. It is estimated that half a million people die prematurely every year in the United States as a result of smoking cigarettes. Research into the health effects of air pollution is ongoing. Medical conditions arising from air pollution can be very expensive. Healthcare costs, lost productivity in the workplace, and human welfare impacts cost billions of dollars each year. Additional information on the health effects of air pollution is available from the Natural Resources Defense Council. A short article on the health effects of ozone (a major component of smog) is available from the B.A.A.Q.M.D.

How can we prevent the damaging effects of air pollution?

In many countries in the world, steps are being taken to stop the damage to our environment from air pollution. Scientific groups study the damaging effects on plant, animal and human life. Legislative bodies write laws to control emissions. Educators in schools and universities teach students, beginning at very young ages, about the effects of air pollution. The first step to solving air pollution is assessment . Researchers have investigated outdoor air pollution and have developed standards for measuring the type and amount of some serious air pollutants. Scientists must then determine how much exposure to pollutants is harmful. Once exposure levels have been set, steps can be undertaken to reduce exposure to air pollution. These can be accomplished by regulation of man-made pollution through legislation. Many countries have set controls on pollution emissions for transportation vehicles and industry. This is usually done to through a variety of coordinating agencies which monitor the air and the environment. At the United Nations, the Atmosphere Management Program carries out world wide environmental projects. In the United States, the primary federal agency is the Environmental Protection Agency. Many state and local organizations also participate in monitoring and controlling the environment. These include the San Francisco Bay Area's Air Quality Management District (B.A.A.Q.M.D.), the Air Quality Management District in southern California, the Environmental Protection Agency of California, SmogBusters of southern California, and the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention (GHASP). Prevention is another key to controlling air pollution. The regulatory agencies mentioned above play an essential role in reducing and preventing air pollution in the environment. In addition, it is possible to prevent many types of air pollution that are not regulated through personal, careful attention to our interactions with the environment. In the United States, most household products come with instructions about safe use. Additional information about product

chemical safety are available in an article and a fact sheet from Enviro$en$e, and in Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Building materials should be reviewed for potential harmful effects. Information on building materials can be found in LBNL's Center for Building Science newsletter. Additional information is available from EcoTech. Adequate ventilation is also a key to controlling exposure to indoor air pollution. Home and work environments should be monitored for adequate air flow and proper exhaust systems installed. Additional information is available in a book titled Understanding Ventilation . One of the most dangerous air pollutants is cigarette smoke. Restricting smoking is an important key to a healthier environment. Legislation to control smoking is in effect in some locations, but personal exposure should be monitored and limited wherever possible. Additional information about the effects of "secondhand" cigarette smoke is available from the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) and Medicine On-line. Only through the efforts of scientists, business leaders, legislators, and individuals can we reduce the amount of air pollution on the planet. This challenge must be met by all of us in order to assure that a healthy environment will exist for ourselves and our children. Find out "What you can do to reduce air pollution".

BIOREACTOR PROCESSES
From the basic biofilter design, some new processes have evolved to become environmentally and commercially viable. These new processes address situations not adequately dealt with in the basic biofilter design such as the large quantity of space required, acidic environments (pH control), pollutants requiring longer assimilation times, and nutrient feeding Biofilters For a brief discussion of the basic design and operation of biofilters see, "Overview". Biofilters are ideal for treating emission that have low concentrations of contaminates and high gas volume, a situation that vexes traditional treatment methods. Other advantages and disadvantages are shown below. Biofilter Advantages: Installation costs are low. Most biofilters are constructed from common materials locally available such as lumber, fiberglass, and plastic pipe. They can be assembled using carpenters, plumbers, and earthmovers. Depending on the amount of pretreatment the emissions require, operating costs are usually low. These costs consist of electricity to operate the primary blower and the humidification pump, part-time labor to check on the process, and small quantities of macronutrients. Biofilters have high DREs f for certain compounds such as aldehydes, organic acids, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. Biofilter Disadvantages:

15

Large land requirement for traditional design. No continuous internal liquid flow in which to adjust bed pH or to add nutrients. Traditional design does not have a covered top, making it difficult to obtain representative samples of exhaust emission and to determine DREs. Natural bed media used in biofilters must be replaced every 2 to 5 years. Bed replacement can take 2 to 6 weeks, depending on bed size.

BIOTRICKLING FILTER As mentioned in the Biofilter section, the basic design of a biofilter makes it difficult to control pH in the packing. Acid is formed with the biological destruction of many pollutants and acid build-up creates a serious problem for operators. Many of the early biofilters were used to deodorize foul emissions from wastewater (sewage) treatment facilities. These emissions often contain sulfur compounds that produce acid upon degradation. Because of the detrimental effect of acid on microbes, operators began experimenting with processes to control pH that they had used and understood. One of the processes they experimented with was the trickling filter. Trickling filters have been used for many years and are effective treatment for wastewater. What is a Biotrickling filter? It is probably better to answer the question, "What is a trickling filter?" first, and then describe the modifications that were made to create the biotrickling filter. A trickling filter is a wastewater treatment process that is usually a round, vertical tank that contains a support rack and is filled with aggregate, ceramic or plastic media to a height of 3 to 15 feet. In the middle of the tank is a vertical pipe that has a rotary connection on the top end. A spray arm is attached to the rotary connection and this has spray nozzles installed along its length. The spray nozzles are angled slightly off-center to provide force necessary to rotate the spraying arm around the top of the trickling filter. A recirculating pump is used to pump liquid from the reservoir in the bottom to the spray nozzles. Liquid level in the sump is maintained with an automatic effluent make-up system. A biofilm forms on the packing surface. This is a biologically active mass that removes the pollutants from the effluent and the microbes decompose them. See Figure .

Rotating Spray Arm

Recycled Effluent

Packed Bed

Treated Effluent Un-treated Effluent

Recirculation Pump

Sludge Discharge

Figure 2 Trickling Filter

The biotrickling filter is very similar to the trickling filter. However, the pollutants are contained in an air phase (emissions), and the pollutants must be dissolved into the liquid phase to be available to the microbes. As the air phase passes through the packing, the pollutants are absorbed from the air into the liquid phase to achieve maximum contact with the biomass. This is the difference from the trickling filter because pollutants that enter the system are already in the liquid phase (effluent) in the trickling filter. Water is added to the reservoir to make-up for water that has evaporated. Accumulated bio-sludge is periodically removed from the reservoir

17

and disposed. See Figure 3.

Rotating Spray Head Emissions Out Packed Bed

Recycled Effluent

Emissions In

Liquid Level

Sludge Discharge

Recirculation Pump

Figure 3 Biotrickling Filter

Emissions may be routed through the biotrickling filter co-current or counter-current to the effluent flow. Because of the continuous flow of a liquid phase, it is an easy matter to automatically neutralize acid build-up. Use of ceramic or plastic packing rings achieve a void space of up to 95 percent, which greatly reduces pressure drop across the packing. This means that 15 feet of plastic packing in a biotrickling filter will have about the same pressure drop as 3 feet of natural packing in a biofilter. In other words, the 15 feet of plastic packing is equivalent to a 5 stage biofilter. Typical characteristics of biofilters found in the United States are shown in Table 1 . Design characteristics of four existing biotrickling. The cost of three of theses biotrickling filters per unit volume of air flow is presented in Table 1.

Height of Bed Packing, ft Packing Cross-Sectional Area, ft2 Emissions Flow Rate, CFM Packing Void Volume, % a Empty Bed Gas Retention Time, Seconds b Pressure Drop Across Bed, inches H2O pH of Recycled Liquid Phase When Treating VOC When Treating H2S VOC Concentrations, grains ft3 Removal Efficiency, %
a b

3 to 6 10 to 32,000 600 to 600,000 90 to 95 2 to 60 0.36 to 2 ~ 7 pH 1 to 2 pH 4.57 E-3 to 45.7 60 to 99.9

Using packing rings, random dump, or structured packing Empty bed gas retention (EBGR) time is defined as the packed bed volume/emission flow rate

Table 1. General Characteristics of Biotrickling Filters (Ref. 7)

Cost results in Table 6 require an explanation. The Hyperion unit was designed, built and operated by chemical engineers from the University of California at Riverside. It was intended to be used as a multi-use research device and was constructed on a moveable trailer. Because of this, much more flexibility and instrumentation than normally needed was built into this application. As a result, the cost per volumetric flow rate for this installation was not used in this comparison. Costs per flow rates for the remaining two applications are not very far apart and average $25.10/CFM. This is almost six times as high as $4.25/CFM, the average cost of the three largest biofilters. This is to be expected, as trickling filter equipment is closer in design to industrial process equipment than traditional biofilters. BIOSCRUBBER Just as the biotrickling filter is an enhancement of the biofilter, the bioscrubber is an enhancement to the biotrickling filter. The bioscrubber attempts to solve two problems with the biotrickling filter: 1. improve the absorption of pollutants into the liquid, and 2. lengthen the time the microbes have to consume the pollutants. These are accomplished in two ways: the tower packing is flooded with a liquid phase and the discharge effluent from the bioscrubber is

19

collected in a storage tank (sump) before being recycled back to the bioscrubber. Flooding the bed increases the ability of the liquid phase to absorb pollutants because as the gas phase (emissions) impacts the bed media it forms tiny bubbles that greatly increases the surfacearea of the interface between the gas and liquid phases. Increasing the interface-area improves the liquid phase's ability to absorb pollutants. The sump acts as reservoir for the liquid phase and permits additional reaction time for the microbes to consume pollutants. Reaction times can be increased to an hour or more, depending on the recirculation rate of the liquid phase and the size of the sump. This increases the time available for microbes to attach and destroy pollutants. Below are more advantages and disadvantages of bioscrubbers. Bioscrubber Advantages: It is not necessary to humidify emissions prior to treating them. This could save the cost of installing a humidification process. The bioscrubber has a smaller footprint than other bioreactors. This is an important consideration in congested facilities with limited available real estate. Because pH control and nutrient feed can be automated, it requires less attention than other bioreactors. Process is ideal for emissions that produce acids upon treatment. Bioscrubber can treat emissions containing particulate matter.

Bioscrubber Disadvantages: Considerably more expensive to install than other bioreactors. It has a chemical scrubber at the heart of the process and resembles chemical-processing equipment more so than other bioreactors. Over feeding can cause excessive biomass growth, which can plug the bioscrubber. Operating cost can be higher than other bioreactor processes. Needs expensive and complex feeding and neutralizing systems. To control biomass growth, toxic and dangerous compounds must be inventoried and handled.

OTHER BIOREACTION TECHNOLOGIES During the course of this study, other bioreaction technologies were identified. Because no reference to commercial applications of these technologies was found, no detailed information is provided on these processes in this report. These technologies are biomembrane and self-cleaning activated carbon bioreactors. The biomembrane uses membranes to concentrate pollutants and as a support structure for a biofilm. However, problems inherent in membrane technology (low flows and high pressure drop) seem to have inhibited development of this technologys commercial utilization. The self-cleaning bioadsorber (formally the rotary bioreactor or filter) is a horizontal

cylinder that is constructed of a granulated active carbon (GAC) bed mounted on a shaft that is supported on both ends. The bed is one third submerged in a trough of water. Microbes are embedded in the GAC and the bed rotates through the water bath. The bed is enclosed and emissions enter from one end and exit the other end. In theory, the GAC adsorbs pollutants from the emission stream and microbes consume pollutants as the bed rotates through the water bath and emission stream. It is not clear why this technology has not become commercially viable.

CONTROL OPTIONS AND COST COMPARISONS

Costs of installing and operating emissions control equipment are very important to the affected facility. In fact, a number of marginal operations have been forced out of business because the costs of controls made them unprofitable. To avoid this from happening, a facility must look at all its options to determine which process technologies are viable and what they cost. Unfortunately, it is difficult to obtain consistent, reliable and accurate information on construction and operating costs for existing bioreaction installations. There are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that bioreaction is an emerging technology and there are not that many installations in use by process industries. Another reason is that facilities that are using bioreactors are reluctant to publish installation and operating costs information for competitive reasons. Estimates for bioreaction processes are based on bare bones designs. They do not include any pretreatment such as humidification or particulate matter (PM) removal. These additional processes may be required. The estimates also assume that the cost of ductwork and instrumentation were simple and minimal. Estimates for processes using incineration (thermal and catalytic processes) were obtained using U.S. EPA's Air Compliance Advisor, Version 7.0. These estimates, under the best conditions, are plus or minus thirty percent accurate. Unfortunately, the situation presented here is out of the equation's range (too low) for emissions flow rate. Therefore, the results obtained may be even more unreliable. The attempt here was to generate order of magnitude estimates of bioreactor and traditional technologies for comparison purposes. For head-to-head comparisons, the model plant technique was used. A hypothetical plant and emission stream were used to design and estimate the costs of various viable technologies. About a decade ago, EPA issued an alternative control technology (ACT) report on the bread-baking industry (Ref. 11). That report contained nine model bakeries with capacities ranging from 5,400 to 19,000 tons bread per year. It was decided to use a model bakery approximately in the middle of this range, 14,000 tons per year. The following criteria were used for the specifications for the model bakery: The baking oven consumes the equivalent of 5 million BTUs of natural gas per hour. Bakery oven operates 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, and 8,000 hours per year. The bakery only makes white bread from the sponge-dough process. The oven is direct-fired with natural gas and has only one stack.

21

Emissions contain 10 percent moisture, 2,000 parts per million, volume basis (ppmv) ethanol and 20 ppmv acetaldehyde. Emissions from the baking oven average 1,579 actual cubic feet per minute (ACFM), and are around 375 /F.

A recent state implementation plan (SIP) now requires the bakery to remove and destroy 98 percent of the pollutants in their emissions. To determine which emission control technologies are viable for controlling emissions from this bakery, available technologies must be reviewed. Emission control techniques can be divided into two groups: combustion (incineration) and non-combustion technologies.

Combustion Control Devices

This category relies on heat to burn VOC molecules in the presence of oxygen. Exhaust from a bakery oven contains insufficient volatile organic material to support combustion. In this situation, it is necessary to supply additional fuel (usually natural gas) to bring the emissions temperature up to the level where the pollutants will combust. EPA has found that emissions exposed to 1,600 /F for at least 0.75 seconds will destroy at least 98 percent of most VOC. Combustion technologies include thermal oxidation, regenerative oxidation, recuperative oxidation, catalytic oxidation and flares. 12.1 Thermal Oxidation: In this technology, emissions are mixed in the flame of the supplemental fuel fire and fed into a refractory-lined furnace that contains sufficient volume to allow the gas mixture to reside for at least 0.75 seconds before being exhausted. This technology works very well, and this type of incinerator is simple to operate. The problem with this technology is that it wastes large quantities of energy. Exhaust gases are 1,600 /F and could be used to preheat the emissions prior to entering the furnace. Because thermal oxidation is such a wasteful option, it will not be considered in this analysis. 12.2Regenerative Oxidation: This technology uses two vessels to capture some of the waste heat from the thermal oxidizer. Each vessel is filled with ceramic packing, which is heated in the first vessel with exhaust gases from the thermal oxidizer. When packing in the first vessel is hot, exhaust gases are switched to the second vessel and bakery oven emissions are routed through the first vessel to be preheated by the residual heat in the ceramic packing. See Figure 6. It is possible to recover as much as 70 percent of the waste heat, which reduces fuel cost by 70 percent (Ref. 12). In Mode A, emissions from the bakery oven are directed through Vessel One and are heated by the residual heat contained in the ceramic packing. Exhaust gases from the thermal oxidizer are directed to Vessel Two to heat its packing. At a predetermined time the flows are switched to Mode B. In sequence, Furnace exhaust begins heating the packing in Vessel One, and the residual heat in Vessel Two heats the Oven emissions. In both Modes, additional natural gas is burned in the thermal oxidizer furnace to keep its temperature above 1,600 /F. Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer is a viable option for the treatment of the bakery oven's emissions.

Oven Emissions

Vessel One

To Atmosphere

Vessel Two

Furnace

Natural Gas

MODE A Oven Emission being heated in One and Furnace Exhaust being cooled in Two

Natural Gas
To Atmosphere

Vessel One

Furnace

Oven Emissions

Vessel Two

MODE B Oven Emission being heated in Two and Furnace Exhaust being cooled in One

Figure 4 Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer Operating Modes

12.3. Recuperative Thermal Oxidizer: This technology has somewhat similar to a Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer. They both recover and use waste heat, but in a different way. In a Recuperative Thermal Oxidizer, emissions from the oven flow through the tube side of a shell and tube heat exchanger, and exhaust from the thermal oxidizer is routed through the shell side. Heat is transported from the hot oxidizer exhaust to the cooler oven emissions. See Figure 7.

23

To Amosphere

Phase I
Oven Exhaust

Phase II

Phase III

Preheated Oven Exhaust

Thermal Oxidizer Exhaust

Three-Phase Recuperative Heat Exchanger

Thermal Oxidizer
Natural Gas

Figure 5. Three-Phase Recuperative Thermal Oxidizer

The Recuperative Thermal Oxidizer is a viable option for treating bakery oven exhaust. 12.4. Catalytic Oxidation: This technology uses metals that act as catalyst to facilitate the reaction between oxygen and the pollutants so the oxidation reaction takes place at a much lower temperature than the thermal oxidation temperature. Typically, catalyst assisted reactions take place in the range of 600 to 1,200 /F, instead of the 1,600 /F required by thermal oxidation. As a result, significant fuel savings can be realized by using a catalyst assisted control device. See Figure 6.
To Atmosphere Oven Catalysis Bed Natural Gas

Economizer Catalytic Oxidizer

Pre-Heated Oven Emissions

Figure 6. Catalytic Oxidizer

Disadvantages of using catalyst include higher capital cost. A precious metal catalyst can cost as high as $600 to $800 a cubic foot. Also, the use of catalyst requires an extremely clean emissions stream that is low in particulate matter. Particulate matter can coat catalyst surfaces, reducing their effectiveness. Catalytic oxidation is a viable option for treating bakery oven

25

emissions and is the preferred choice of bakeries with controls on their ovens (Ref. 11).

Bio-Oxidizer Technology

The Bio-Oxidizer system is an innovative medical waste processing technology that safely disposes of a wide range of medical waste.

Engineered to handle all categories of medical waste, including sharps, the Bio-Oxidizer system processes between 100 and 125 pounds per hour and destroys 100% of pathogens, viruses and bacteria and reduces waste mass by 95% and volume by 99%.

Figure 7 The Model 100 Bio-Oxidizer System processes 100 to 125 pounds per hour.

Fig. 8 Sterile, Inorganic Residue

Handles the complete range of medical waste Maximum reduction in weight and volume 100% destruction of bacteria, viruses and pathogens.

Safe for the environment Enhanced employee safety Fully automated loading and record keeping Integral heat exchanger for energy recovery Innovative control technology and interface Significant liability advantages over competition

The principle of operation is the electro-pyrolysis of organics followed by two phases of electrooxidation. The Bio-Oxidizer system electrically heats the organic solids and liquids, turning them

into vapor, and then oxidizes the vapors in two oxidizers. The remaining residue, which is typically less than 5% of the original weight and volume, is sterile, inert, and may be discarded as municipal waste in most instances or possibly recycled as road aggregate, for example. The resulting air emissions are made up of carbon dioxide, water vapor and trace elements. Medical waste is placed in boxes and loaded on the conveyor, minimizing operator contact.. Bio-Oxidizer is a registered trademark of Bio-Oxidation Services Inc., a subsidiary of Harsco Corporation. Oxidation Technologies Inc. is unrelated to Bio-Oxidation Services Inc. or Harsco Corporation. How a Bio-oxidation Plant Works Bio-oxidation treatment was a final step in cleaning excess process water or waste ammonia liquor that originated from coke oven gas produced during the coking process at Bethlehem Steel's Bethlehem Coke Plant (Bethlehem, Pa) until it closed in the mid 1990s.

In this process, phenol and thiocyanate were "eaten" (oxidized to carbon dioxide and water) by bacteria at a bio-oxidation plant. The treated water was then sent to the City of Bethlehem's municipal sewage treatment plant where the remaining ammonia was "eaten" by a yet another strain of bacteria and made safe to discharge into the Lehigh River.

The standard bio-oxidation plant for treating coke-making wastewater was developed by Bethlehem Steel beginning in the late 1950s and the full-scale plant was installed in the summer of 1962--a "first" in the United States. In developing the facility, researchers took bacteria from a local creek contaminated with phenol and cultured them for their ability to remove phenol. Later, mutant bacteria were introduced to maintain stability.

Until the facility was closed in the late 1990s, mutant bacteria arrived freeze dried and were rehydrated and cultured (fed milk whey) before being introduced into an aeration basin at their most active stage of life.

The bio-oxidation plant operation consisted of four main units: a large treated weak-liquor holding tank, a mix box, a rectangular aeration basin, and a pair of round clarifier ponds.

Before bio-oxidation actually began, process water was held at the treated weak liquor holding tank to equalize possible fluctuation of ammonia so that it does not adversely affect the rate of phenol oxidation. Process water was water used in cokemaking. From a holding tank, process water flowed to a mix box where an antifoam agent, phosphoric acid (a nutrient required by the bacteria), and

27

dilution water were added. At this stage, process water was ready to begin bio-oxidation. In starting bio-oxidation, the treated process water entered a rectangular aeration basin outfitted with eight spinning mixers called surface aerators. These acted like giant egg beaters to stir the process water and increase its oxygen content, which encouraged the bacteria to "eat" (break down) phenol and thiocyanate. As the bacteria increased in number (flocculated), they formed a bacterial cell mass called sludge.

Both the sludge and water flowed from the aeration basin to clarifiers where sludge settled out and was recycled back to the aeration pond. A side stream of excess sludge and effluent discharged to the city's sewage treatment plant where the remaining ammonia was "eaten" by a different strain of bacteria and was made safe to discharge into the Lehigh River Special phenol-digesting bacteria didn't really "eat" phenol in the way people eat food. When bacteria "eat" phenol, phenol molecules (C6H5OH) pass through the bacteria's cell wall. Once inside, enzymes go to work to chemically transform the phenol molecules by pulling them apart until they change to something other than phenol.

Part of a phenol molecule changes to carbon dioxide (CO2) when carbon and oxygen molecules join one another. When hydrogen and oxygen molecules join, they become water. In both cases, this joining of molecules with oxygen is called oxidation, which not only makes carbon dioxide and water, but also some of the energy the cell needs to survive to repair itself, grow, move and reproduce, and bring "wanted" molecules across the cell's membrane while keeping unwanted molecules out.

Promising World of Bio-oxidation

Our environment has the remarkable ability to keep itself in constant balance: One organism's poison is another organism's meat. Mother Nature is incredibly willing to accommodate the waste produced by humankind, whether it's exhaled carbon dioxide, discarded banana peels or industry-generated cyclic aromatic compounds.

That's the premise behind biofiltration, a technology that uses naturally occurring microbial communities to degrade industrial emissions. Biofiltration - or, more accurately, bio-oxidation entails passing polluted air from a process through some type of medium that supports a microbial population. Bio-oxidation may be conducted in bioscrubbers, biotrickling filters and biofilters, each of which operates at a different degree of "wetness;" many bio-oxidation providers combine two or more of these technologies for a given application (CEP, Dec. 2002, pp. 48-53). The microbes, typically a diverse community of various types of bacteria and fungi, degrade the pollutants to

carbon dioxide, water and mineral salts.

The earliest biofilters were basically open pits of soil; civil and environmental engineering professor Joseph Devinny at the Univ. of Southern California (Los Angeles; www.usc.edu) traces their use back to 1923. Today, many systems are enclosed and highly engineered, using modern control equipment and proprietary, partially or entirely synthetic media.

While bio-oxidation has become widely accepted in the U.S. to treat odors (see sidebar), the technology has also been shown to degrade emissions produced by many industrial processes. For instance, four biofiltration units containing BRI, Inc.'s (Quincy, IL; www.bri-inc.com) Airspheres, the tradename for this firm's inorganic and organic media, are employed on a particleboard-press vent (Figure 1) to control methanol and formaldehyde emissions. The system treats 42,000 ft^sup 3^/min of exhaust with removal efficiencies of 95-99% for methanol and 93-99% for formaldehyde. In another case, a silk-screen printing facility that uses more than 20 solvents in its process (including alcohols, ketones and aliphatic and aromatic compounds) and experiences highly variable pollutant loadings uses a bio-oxidation unit manufactured by PPC Biofilter (Longview, TX; www.ppcbio.com) to treat 45,000-ft^sup 3^/min of process exhaust. This customer touts removal efficiencies of up to 95%. Meanwhile, a small paint manufacturer is operating a 9,500-ft^sup 3^/min BRI unit to reduce VOC levels by more than 90%; the airstreams include methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), toluene, xylene, acetone and various alcohols (Figure 2). Another PPC biofilter installation at an optic-lens manufacturer reduced alcohols by 93%, ketones by 82%, and an unnamed major hazardous air pollutant (HAP) by approximately 97%.

Care and feeding of bio-oxidizers

In some cases, bio-oxidation can be a more cost-effective strategy than other air-pollution-control methods, such as thermal oxidation or activated carbon - e.g., for non-regulated processes that produce non-hazardous VOCs. In addition, some high-volume airflows with low pollutant concentrations can be inordinately costly to treat with thermal oxidizers, as the pollutant does not provide significant fuel value. And, unlike thermal oxidizers or activated-carbon systems, biooxidation is a sustainable technology that requires no natural gas. At the same time, however, biooxidation hasn't enjoyed widespread acceptance in other industries, for a number of reasons.

"It's a very promising technology, but it has its niche," points out Mohammed Serageldin, an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA; Washington, DC; www.sepa. gov) Research Triangle Park, NC, division. For one thing, the technology is not economically feasible for certain types of air streams. "While microbes can degrade many chemical pollutants at a fast rate, these substances don't easily transfer from the air phase to the water phase

29

within a biofilter," explains Scot Standefer, president of PPC Biofilter. He adds that pollutant degradability depends on that compound's water solubility, vapor pressure and Henry's Law constant. A rough hierarchy of pollutants listed in the order of least-to-most-difficult to degrade includes alcohols, ketones, straight-chain alkanes and cyclic aromatics. "For instance, we can biologically handle 500 parts per million (ppm) of toluene in an 80,000 ft3/min air stream and achieve high removal efficiencies. But, the system would be extremely large, and its capital cost, excessive," says Standefer.

In addition, while microbial communities are remarkably adaptable to changing process conditions, such as fluctuating pollutant concentrations, they do have a decided "comfort zone." Most naturally occurring microorganisms are mesophilic, preferring moderate temperatures. "A lot of soluble organics can be biodegraded at temperatures of 40-50F, but for about every 10-deg increase, up to some 'cooking' point, you will get a doubling of the metabolic rate - providing more oxidation at temperatures in the 85-95F range," says Jim Boswell, senior scientist at BRI. Similarly, the living organisms need the right amount of water to work properly. Given the temperature and humidity restraints, some air streams just can't be conditioned cost effectively to suit the microbes. "Say you have an air stream coming out of a stack at 200F, which is too hot to introduce into a biofilter," says Boswell. "If it's relatively saturated with water, it cannot be cooled adiabatically, so you have to dilute it. For instance, a 50,000-ft^sup 3^/min air stream might require dilution to 300,000 ft^sup 3^/min," he adds. "Now the biofilter is six times as large as a comparable thermal oxidizer." Big visions, shallow pockets When bio-oxidation began to gain the attention of U.S. industry in the early 1990s, the technology suffered from overly high expectations. "It's a living organism, and it can't do everything," says Serageldin. "There was too much optimism, and that concerned a lot of people who were buying the product." Since then, bio-oxidation providers have developed a good understanding of what their systems can and can't do, but the technology has fallen into a Catch-22 situation, which is characteristic of innovative technologies trying to break into established markets. The technology hasn't been used enough to prove itself; but until it does, prospective users are unwilling to give it a try. At the same time, Standefer explains that the technology has advanced well beyond its hit-or-miss reputation. "I think there's enough success in the industry over the years that, if we say we can do it, we can do it," he says. "PPC has the kinetics on about 125 compounds and can quickly analyze a gas stream. Given the flow, moisture, temperature and chemical constituents, we could walk through the analysis in a couple of hours and decide whether biofiltration fits or not." While risk takers are betting on an innovative sustainable air-pollutioncontrol strategy, bio-oxidation providers are struggling to keep their operations afloat in an unforgiving market environment. Larger companies, such as Monsanto Co. (St. Louis, MO; www.monsanto.com), have cautiously entered the arena, only to drop the technology as soon as they realized the immediate return on investment.

"These companies are led by visionaries who recognize the potential worldwide benefits of biological oxidation, but don't have deep pockets," says environmental consultant and retired EPA employee Jim Berry (Raleigh, NC). And in this corner.... Bio-oxidization currently competes with a couple of 900-lb gorillas, namely thermal oxidation and activated carbon - established methods well known by users and regulators. "For example, if you turn on a thermal oxidizer and light the burner, you can almost walk away and forget about it," says Boswell. "A biofilter is an ecological system inside a black box - while the maintenance requirements are very low, it requires more hands-on tweaking, compared with a thermal oxidizer, to get them to perform at their optimum level." "The microbial communities aren't as predictable as mechanical systems and aren't at their optimal 100% of the time," says Boswell. Add to that, that bio-oxidizers are still quite new to the U.S. regulatory environment. "Air bioreactors (bio-oxidizers) haven't been sufficiently validated for the purposes of achieving rule-making requirements," says Serageldin, stressing that more data from commercial installations are needed before federal and state agencies can understand how to deal with bio-oxidation. "Different systems have different parameters that must be monitored; for each parameter monitored, there must be a regulation." This standoff means that some potential users are barred from even considering bio-oxidation, say the technology's providers. There's a plethora of approaches that EPA has used for specifying air pollution control (APC) requirements, including best available control technology (BACT) and lowest achievable emissions rate (LAER)," adds Berry. If a regulation for controlling VOCs or hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) specifies BACT or LAER, a company has little choice but to install a thermal oxidizer. The reason, says Berry, is because the data to support BACT and LAER levels were often measured at facilities that use this type of APC device. Furthermore, biological systems are unpredictable, and therefore not wellsuited to hard percentage removals, especially at 95% and higher, which is a common specification. To illustrate, Standefer cites a refining facility in Houston that needed to reduce its methanol emissions by 97%. Methanol has ideal microbial degradation kinetics, and would be a "slam dunk" on biofiltration, notes Standefer. But in that particular regulatory environment - a non-attainment zone - the required removal efficiency was a non-negotiable 97%. One can set the combustion temperature of a thermal oxidizer to maintain a specific destruction efficiency. In contrast, a biofilter is a vital piece of equipment, in which pollutant concentrations from the process are constantly changing, thereby effecting changes in system's destruction efficiency. "We were willing to guarantee 93-94% destruction on a timeaveraged basis, but that would not have met the customers' regulatory permit requirement," Standefer explains. Bio-oxidation providers point out that the "95% or greater" removal specification demonstrates an inability of regulators to see the bigger picture. For instance, in the previous example, thermal oxidation would certainly destroy the 3-4% of methanol emissions not removed by the biofilter, but not without drawbacks - namely, NOx and CO emissions from the thermal oxidizer, natural gas to

31

fire the unit and additional electricity to counteract the higher pressure drop over the system. Light at the end of the tunnel In the past, regulators often set destruction-efficiency percentages for add-on controls. However, today's rulemakers are increasingly focused on pollution prevention. "Most of our rules, such as maximum achievable control technologies (MACT) or national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP), don't require add-on controls specify the method of control - they set up emissions limits," says Serageldin. "Hence, a facility can use a mix of control devices (e.g., pollution prevention and add-on controls) to meet the emissions limits in such standards," he adds. An even more holistic approach, says Boswell, would be to reduce a plant's overall pollution rather than control specific emissions sources in isolation. "The idea is to reduce the emissions from various point sources not previously required to be controlled for VOC or HAP emissions, but that are part of the facility airemissions permit, by an amount that equals or is greater than the reductions that would be achieved by fitting a single source with an APC device that achieves emission reductions in excess of 95%," he explains. Rising natural-gas prices could be good news for bio-oxidation systems, as well. At today's fuel prices, $6-7/Btu, the cost of operating a 50,000-ftVmin thermal oxidizer would be $250,000$500,000/yr. "As U.S. consumption of natural gas increases and reserves dwindle, the demand for biofiltration will increase," Standefer predicts. BRI has also entered into two promising joint ventures, one of which is with Calgon Carbon Corp. (Pittsburgh, PA; www.calgoncarbon. com) to supply odor-control biofilter systems to the municipal wastewater treatment sector. The other, with PPG Total Service Solutions (TSS; Troy, MI), is to supply VOC/odor-abatement bio-oxidation systems, tradenamedGreencell, to PPG Industries' (Pittsburgh, PA; www.ppg.com) transportation-related original-equipment-manufacturer client base. According to Howard Wright, director of marketing and technology for specialty products, BRI's technology has been well received by the market. PPC has successfully used completely inert media in three commercial installations. This development could significantly reduce operating costs for biofilters, as the replacement costs for media tend to be a major user concern. The primary reason for media replacement is the degradation of the organic matter typically used, Standefer says. As the particle sizes become smaller, so do the void fractions, resulting in greater pressure drops (and thus higher energy expenditures to drive the air through the media). "It's been our plan since day one to move to totally inert media," reveals Standefer. However, he adds that gas streams are media-specific - i.e., one type of media won't fit all applications. Serageldin, who has been following bio-oxidation since 1991, says that EPA held a one-day meeting in 1997 to allow bio-oxidation providers, regulators and industry representatives to share their experience with the technology. In addition to the five technology providers, there were only five attendees at the open EPA forum - a sign that the technology wasn't yet ready for prime time. "Biooxidation's niche has to be identified, at least for initial market penetration," says Serageldin. "But it is a good technology," he concludes.

IRENE KIM is a contributing editor with over 12 years of experience writing about the chemical process industries. Our environment has the remarkable ability to keep itself in constant balance: One organism's poison is another organism's meat. Mother Nature is incredibly willing to accommodate the waste produced by humankind, whether it's exhaled carbon dioxide, discarded banana peels or industry-generated cyclic aromatic compounds. That's the premise behind biofiltration, a technology that uses naturally occurring microbial communities to degrade industrial emissions. Biofiltration - or, more accurately, bio-oxidation entails passing polluted air from a process through some type of medium that supports a microbial population. Bio-oxidation may be conducted in bioscrubbers, biotrickling filters and biofilters, each of which operates at a different degree of "wetness;" many bio-oxidation providers combine two or more of these technologies for a given application (CEP, Dec. 2002, pp. 48-53). The microbes, typically a diverse community of various types of bacteria and fungi, degrade the pollutants to carbon dioxide, water and mineral salts. The earliest biofilters were basically open pits of soil; civil and environmental engineering professor Joseph Devinny at the Univ. of Southern California (Los Angeles; www.usc.edu) traces their use back to 1923. Today, many systems are enclosed and highly engineered, using modern control equipment and proprietary, partially or entirely synthetic media. While bio-oxidation has become widely accepted in the U.S. to treat odors (see sidebar), the technology has also been shown to degrade emissions produced by many industrial processes. For instance, four biofiltration units containing BRI, Inc.'s (Quincy, IL; www.bri-inc.com) Airspheres, the tradename for this firm's inorganic and organic media, are employed on a particleboard-press vent (Figure 1) to control methanol and formaldehyde emissions. The system treats 42,000 ft^sup 3^/min of exhaust with removal efficiencies of 95-99% for methanol and 93-99% for formaldehyde. In another case, a silk-screen printing facility that uses more than 20 solvents in its process (including alcohols, ketones and aliphatic and aromatic compounds) and experiences highly variable pollutant loadings uses a bio-oxidation unit manufactured by PPC Biofilter (Longview, TX; www.ppcbio.com) to treat 45,000-ft^sup 3^/min of process exhaust. This customer touts removal efficiencies of up to 95%. Meanwhile, a small paint manufacturer is operating a 9,500-ft^sup 3^/min BRI unit to reduce VOC levels by more than 90%; the airstreams include methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), toluene, xylene, acetone and various alcohols (Figure 2). Another PPC biofilter installation at an optic-lens manufacturer reduced alcohols by 93%, ketones by 82%, and an unnamed major hazardous air pollutant (HAP) by approximately 97%.

Care and feeding of bio-oxidizers

In some cases, bio-oxidation can be a more cost-effective strategy than other air-pollution-control methods, such as thermal oxidation or activated carbon - e.g., for non-regulated processes that produce non-hazardous VOCs. In addition, some high-volume airflows with low pollutant concentrations can be inordinately costly to treat with thermal oxidizers, as the pollutant does not

33

provide significant fuel value. And, unlike thermal oxidizers or activated-carbon systems, biooxidation is a sustainable technology that requires no natural gas. At the same time, however, biooxidation hasn't enjoyed widespread acceptance in other industries, for a number of reasons.

"It's a very promising technology, but it has its niche," points out Mohammed Serageldin, an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA; Washington, DC; www.sepa. gov) Research Triangle Park, NC, division. For one thing, the technology is not economically feasible for certain types of air streams. "While microbes can degrade many chemical pollutants at a fast rate, these substances don't easily transfer from the air phase to the water phase within a biofilter," explains Scot Standefer, president of PPC Biofilter. He adds that pollutant degradability depends on that compound's water solubility, vapor pressure and Henry's Law constant. A rough hierarchy of pollutants listed in the order of least-to-most-difficult to degrade includes alcohols, ketones, straight-chain alkanes and cyclic aromatics. "For instance, we can biologically handle 500 parts per million (ppm) of toluene in an 80,000 ft3/min air stream and achieve high removal efficiencies. But, the system would be extremely large, and its capital cost, excessive," says Standefer.

In addition, while microbial communities are remarkably adaptable to changing process conditions, such as fluctuating pollutant concentrations, they do have a decided "comfort zone." Most naturally occurring microorganisms are mesophilic, preferring moderate temperatures. "A lot of soluble organics can be biodegraded at temperatures of 40-50F, but for about every 10-deg increase, up to some 'cooking' point, you will get a doubling of the metabolic rate - providing more oxidation at temperatures in the 85-95F range," says Jim Boswell, senior scientist at BRI.

Microbial Degradation of the Pollutant Microbial metabolism of pollutants readily occurs when the pollutants are used as a source of energy. For instance, toluene is used as an electron and carbon donor by several organotrophic bacteria; they use oxygen as an electron acceptor. Ammonium is used as an electron donor by lithotrophic nitrifying bacteria; they use oxygen as an electron acceptor and carbon dioxide as a carbon source to build cell biomass (Fochtand Verstraete, 1977). Sometimes the pollutant can be a cosubstrate. For instance, trichloroethene can be metabolized together with toluene (Mu and Scow, 1994). Sufficient availability of nutrients such as minerals, vitamins and growth factors is essential for proper growth of the microbial community. Hence, the microbial biomass acts as a kind of biocatalyst that constantly maintains itself .The energy released during degradation of the pollutants is used for maintenance metabolism and for growth of the microorganisms. In a waste gas treatment reactor, growth of the bacteria is often minimal. This means that all the released energy serves mainly for maintenance metabolism of the bacteria. The advantage is that there is little or no waste sludge, in contrast to, e.g., wastewater treatment systems. Often one deliberately tries to minimize the growth of excess biomass, e.g., by limiting the supply of mineral

nutrients such as phosphate (Wubker and Friedrich, 1996) or by seeding the reactor with protozoa that graze on the bacteria (Cox and Deshusses, 1999). Microbial degradation of the pollutant depends on a multitude of factors. The most important external factors are temperature, nutrient availability and toxicity of the gaseous components. There are also a series of internal factors directly related to the way microorganisms develop and work. For instance, different species, each with different capabilities, can cooperate and achieve very effective pollutant removal. De Heyder et al. (1997a) described the stimulation of ethene removal by Mycobacterium sp. in the presence of an active nitrifying population. Veiga et al. (1999) identified two different bacterial species (Bacillus and Pseudomonas) and a fungus (Trichosporon) functioning as cooperative agents in a biofilter treating alkylbenzene gases. The microorganisms (biomass) can be introduced into the bioreactor in several ways. In some situations, natural sources such as manure, aquatic sediments or sludge from wastewater treatment plants are used as the inoculum. Moreover, in abiofilter, the carrier material (compost, wood bark, etc.) itself has a naturally occurring microbial community. In other instances, specific bacteria or mixtures of isolatedstrains of naturally occurring bacteria that can metabolize the pollutant in the waste gas stream are introduced into the bioreactor (Kennes and Thalasso, 1998). Such seeding is referred to as bioaugmentation. To accelerate the removal of a particular recalcitrant pollutant, one could make use of genetically modified microorganisms having improved degradation capacities. For bioscrubbers in which the removal occurs in an activated sludge reactor system, bioaugmentation as described for wastewater systems by Van Limbergenet al. (1998) could be applied. Generally, inoculation of the reactor with appropriate bacteria significantly decreases the startup period for these reactors (Smet et al., 1996). However, the operating conditions and the prevailing environmental factors generally exert selective pressure on the microorganisms present in the bioreactor, resulting in the developmentof a specific microbial community. This community can be quite differentfrom the enrichment culture that was introduced into the reactor (Bendinger, 1992). The development of the structure and function of the microbial community in the bioreactor affects the microbial degradation rate and, hence, the extent of pollutantremoval. The microorganisms are surrounded by an extracellular organic layer,which normally has a negative charge and serves many functions, including adhesion,protection, carbon storage, and ion exchange (Bishop and Kinner, 1986).Most often, biological waste gas treatment results in non-reusable end products.For SO2 scrubbing, however, a special approach has been developed (De Vegt and Buisman, 1995; Verstraete et al., 1997). As schematized in, a sequence of biotechnological reactors enables SO2 to be recovered as sulfur powder.

Non-Combustion Control Devices Carbon Adsorption: This technology uses vessels filled with granulated activated carbon (GAC) to adsorb pollutants onto their surfaces. With continuous operations, at least two vessels are required. When the first units GAC becomes saturated with pollutants, emissions must be directed to the second unit while the first unit is re-generated. Re-generation is the process of removing the pollutants from the GAC and restoring it to capacity. This is usually done with steam and/or heat. The pollutants are not destroyed in the carbon adsorption process, they are just transferred to another phase. Ethanol, the primary pollutant in bakery oven

35

emissions, has a high affinity for carbon and is difficult to remove from the GAC beds. Because of this problem, carbon adsorption is not considered a viable option in this situation. Chemical Scrubbers: This technology uses a column packed with ceramic or plastic rings and is flooded with a liquid phase. The pollutants in the emissions are absorbed by the liquid and the contaminated liquid requires additional treatment. The pollutants are not destroyed by the scrubbing process, but report to the liquid phase creating another pollution problem. Because of this, chemical scrubbing alternative is not an option in this situation. Condensation:. Condensation of ethanol from bakery emissions would require refrigerated cooled coils. Because of the low temperatures required, water, fat and oils would also condense from the emissions. Water would freeze to the coils and the fats and oils would foul them, inhibit heat transfer and reduce the effectiveness of the condenser. This process would also create large volumes of wastewater that require additional treatment. This technology is not considered a viable option. Process/Formulation Changes: This alternative is not considered an option. All modified yeast products that lower VOC emissions produce products that have unacceptable taste. Bioreaction: During the last decade, significant advances have been made in various biological processes. More facilities are evaluating various bioreaction processes as viable options to traditional technologies. Because of large land requirements, biofilters may not be an option. Other options that are potentially viable are biotrickling filter and bioscrubbers. . Commercial Applications of Biological Waste Gas Purification Needs Concerns over industrial releases of odors, toxic compounds and smog-formingchemicals have grown steadily. Increased public awareness of health impacts, declining tolerance for industrial offensiveness, expanding industrial activity andgreater prosperity have led to insistence that air discharges be cleaned up even whendischargers complain that costs are high. Regulations have forced some companies to move to less-affected areas and have made others close down. All are interested in seeking to meet regulatory requirements at the lowest possible cost. Contaminants have commonly been removed by thermal treatment or activated carbon adsorption. Thermal treatment, either direct flaring or catalytic oxidation at lower temperature, is effective when contaminant concentrations are high enough to provide a significant portion of the energy required. However, when concentrationsare low and additional fuel is required, a great deal of energy is wasted, because the entire airflow must be heated to oxidize a small amount of contaminant. Activated carbon acts by surface adsorption and can produce very clean effluent air. However, the amount of contaminant adsorbed per unit weight of activated carbon is a function of the airborne concentration. When concentrations are low, the adsorptivityof activated carbon is often reduced. The amount of activated carbon to be regenerated or replaced for each kilogram of contaminant removed becomes large, and the treatment is again impractical. Biological treatment fills the need for an economical means of treating low concentration contaminants. It has been most widely used in odor control and has gained greatest acceptance in Europe where odor regulations are strict and fuel costs are high. In recent years, however, it has been increasingly used for the control of toxic compounds and those that contribute to the formation of

smog. Biological Treatment The concept of biological air treatment at first seems contradictory: organisms suspended in the air cannot be biologically active. Air can be treated, however, if it is brought in close contact with a water phase that contains active organisms. Contaminants dissolve in the water where microbial degradation keeps concentrations low, driving further dissolution. The needs for interphase contaminant transfer and for maintaining the water phase microbial ecosystem dictate the basic form of biological air treatment systems. A reactor must provide a large water surface area for efficient phase transfer and support for a substantial biomass. The three general plans for biological treatment systems are biofilters, biotrickling filters, and bioscrubbers (Ottengraf, 1986). Inbiofilters, the porous medium is kept damp by maintaining the humidity of the incoming air and by occasional sprinkling (Fig. 18.1). In biotrickling filters, water flows steadily over the porous bed and is continuously collected and recirculated. In a bioscrubber, phase transfer occurs in one container as the water is sprayed through the air or trickled over a packed bed, then the water is transferred to a liquid phase bioreactor where the contaminant is degraded.Bioscrubbers are less commonly used and are not further discussed. There are some secondary considerations for design. An important operating cost is the power for pumping air. The system must be designed so that the pressure required to drive the air through the system, called the head loss, is small. It is also necessary to have a means for removing biomass so that it does not clog the system. In biotrickling filters, the flowing water may carry away biomass as rapidly as it grows, maintaining a steady state microbial ecosystem. However, heavily loaded biotricklingfilters often have problems with clogging. Lightly or moderately loaded bio-filters may reach steady state through the establishment of a culture of predatory microbes that consume the decomposers, but again, heavy contaminant loads can cause rapid growth and pore clogging. Research on means to control or remove biomass remains active. Water is readily available in biotrickling filters, but biofilters must be provided with humidification or irrigation systems to maintain the water content of the biofilm. All the systems require a source of nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates. Each biological system must have an initial seed culture of microorganisms. Most often, a diverse mixed culture comes with the medium or is applied separately. It is presumed that those species capable of degrading the contaminant will grow rapidly, dominate the system, and create a dense culture ideal for efficient treatment. A major design characteristic of a biological treatment system is the detention time. This is the average time that a parcel of air is held in the system. For a given flow, the minimum detention time determines the size of the reactor and so is a prime factor in determining the costs of the system. Because true porosity is oftenhard to measure, empty bed residence time (EBRT), calculated using the total volumeof the bed, is often used to describe systems.

Applications for Bio-Oxidizers

VOC INDUSTRIAL Paint Manufacturing Facilities Paint Applicators - Spray Booths Wood Product Facilities High Tech Chip Manufacturing Die Casting Oil Mist Emissions ODOR CONTROL Pulp & Paper Wastewater Treatment Facilities Breweries

37

Animal Processing/Rendering

REFERENCES 1. Q. Zhang et al, "Odor Production, Evaluation and Control", Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba, October 2002. 2. J. E Burgess, S. A. Parsons, and R. M. Stuetz, "Developments in Odor Control and Waste Gas Treatment", School of Water Science, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, UK. 3. Peter L. Voigt; "Biofiltation for Odor and VOC Control"; Clean TeQ Publication, Dandeneng, Victoria, Australia, 3175. 4. Joseph S. Devinny, "Clearing the Air Biologically", Civil Engineering Magazine, September 1998, pp. 46-49. 5. F. Jason Martin, Rust Environmental, and Raymond C. Loehr, Professor University of Texas, Austin, "Effects of Periods of Non-Use on Biofilter Performance", Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association, Vol. 46, pp. 534-554. 6. R. Allen Boyette, PE, Biofiltration Economics and Performance, E & A Consultants, Cary, NC, ~ 2000. 7. Marc A. Deshesses and Huub H. J. Cox, Biotrickling Filter Air Pollution Control, Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Riverside, CA, ~ 2000. 8. Huub H. J. Cox and Marc A. Deshusses, Waste Gas Treatment in Biotrickling Filter, Chapter 4, University of California, Riverside, CA. 9. Bio-Wise, Company Publication, Biological System Reduces VOC Emissions, Bio-Wise, P.O. Box 83, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 OBR, Web Site: www.dti.gov.uk/biowise. 10. Mark A. Perkins, PE, William R. Tatem, and James S McMillen, EIT; Milti-Faceted Odor Control Program Controls Costs and get results at a Large Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant; Trinity River (Texas) Authority; and Alan Plummer and Associates, Inc. 11. C. Wally Sanford, Alternative Control Technology for Bakery Oven Emissions, U.S. EPA Report Nos. 453/R-92-017, OAQPS, U.S. EPA, December 1992. 12. Air Compliance Advisor, U.S. EPA, OAQPS/ISEG, 2000.