Biofilter를 이용한 diesel VOCs의 생물학적 제거

The petrochemical products can cause soil and groundwater contamination during their transportation and the use of the products, and while being contained in underground storage tanks(USTs) throughout the leakage. To treat the contaminated soil, the bioventing method is suitable for the remediation of semi-volatile compounds, such as diesel and kerosene. Biofiltration is one of possible method to treat the off-gas produced in the process of the bioventing. This study is related to the usage, effectiveness of treatment, and feasibility of two types of biofilter system made of ceramic-compost and polymer respectively to treat diesel VOCs at constant retention time of 20 sec. Compost biofilter showed the average removal efficiency of 73 % when the inlet concentration increased to 20 ppmv. Increased the inlet concentration decreased the microbial activities as well as the removal efficiency. On the contrary, the removal efficiency of the polyurethane biofilter was maintained at 88 % at the inlet concentration of 13 ppmv during ten days and was obtained to 80 % at the inlet concentration of 30 ppmv in spite of the drop of the efficiency in the sudden increase of the inlet concentration. At the beginning of the experiment it showed low removal efficiency at low inlet concentration due to the low microbial activity, however, as experiments proceed the removal efficiency could be obtained more than 80% at high inlet concentration.