The APERG program is funded by the Reuben and Alice Wasser A.P.C. Education and Research Charitable Remainder Unitrust.
2004 APERG Scholar: Feng Qiao (Second Year of Funding)
Rutgers University
Project Title: Biofilter Design for Treatment of Contaminants with Low Water Solubility
Biofiltration has received increased acceptance as a cost effective and
low maintenance air pollution control technology, particularly for large volume, low concentration biodegradable waste gases. Despite their increasing popularity, comprehensive and fundamental knowledge about the overall process are still lacking, because of the complexity of the system. For example, the treatment of low water solubility compounds (LWSCs) in biofilters is often restricted by poor removal efficiencies (RE), likely due to the low transfer rates of these compounds from gas phase to biofilm phase . However, substantially higher removal efficiencies of methane (a very low water solubility compound) were demonstrated in the lab experiments. The primary goal of this project is to elucidate the effects of biofilm conditions on the interfacial transfer rate of the LWSCs in biofilters in order to improve overall system performance.
