• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.83-90
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• 1997

Aiming at the treatment of large volumes of gas with a low concentration of poorly water soluble VOC(Volatile Organic Compound), a new system is proposed: the combination absorption tower/bioreactor. In the scrubber part of the bioscrubbing system, the contaminating compounds are absorbed in a aqueous phase. The contaminated scrubbing liquid is transported to the bioreactor, where the compounds are biodegraded by aerobic microorganisms (mainly to carbon dioxide, water, and biomass). In this study, separation of a volatile organic compound(VOC) out of a waste gas stream has been carried out using a re-cyclable high boiling point extrant(HBE). The liquid stream containing a high boiling point entrant(HBE) scrubs the gas stream in a direct gas-liquid countercurrent contacting operation in a packed tower for the removal of said component from the gaseous stream. A packed-bed column using Pall Ring was set up in order to simulate practical conditions for the scrubbing tower. The liquid stream transported to the bioreactor is recovered and recycled to the scrubber. The model gas, which contained 400 mg/$\textrm{m}^3$ of toluene, at a rate of 100 L/min, flowed into the packed column where the scrubbing liquid trickled over the packing in countercurrent to the rising gas at 10~15L/min. The bioscrubber designed for large volume air streams containing VOCs showed removal efficiency up to 80% in an optimum operating conditions during the tests fer removing toluene from an air stream by scrubbing the air stream with HBE.