Feasibility study of a compact process for biological treatment of highly soluble VOCs polluted gaseous effluent.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), representing a wide range of products mainly generated by industrial activity, are involved in air pollution. This study deals with a new biological treatment process of gaseous effluent combining a gas/liquid contactor called an "aero-ejector" and a membrane bioreactor. Combining these two innovative technologies enables a high elimination efficiency to be reached. We first focus on transfer phenomena characterization in a pilot installation on a laboratory scale, using a gaseous effluent polluted with a low ethanol concentration (7.1 x 10(-3) kg.m(-3)). These experiments demonstrated the good transfer performances since 90% of the ethanol was absorbed in the liquid phase in one step. After this physical characterization, the biological aspect of the system was studied using the yeast Candida utilis as microorganism. During the experiment, no ethanol was measured in the fermentation broth nor in the outlet gas, confirming the efficiency of ethanol elimination by C. utilis. The experimental procedure emerging from the present study strongly validates the suitability of this process for ethanol removal from air.

Influence of a transverse flowrate on the oxygen transfer performance in heterogeneous aeration: case of hydro-ejectors.

This paper deals with the scaling of aeration devices, and more specifically hydro-ejectors, in the case of heterogeneous aeration. Because the transfer of oxygen only occurs in a very small part of the volume of the treatment basin, the transfer performance of the aerator depends on the device itself and on the surrounding flow characteristics. First experiments were achieved with a 10 L mechanically agitated reactor in order to operate at a known kLa and liquid flowrate Q. The results show that the oxygen transfer capacity of the reactor is used to a greater or lesser extent depending on the flowrate which passes through the bubbling region. When a hydro-ejector is concerned, the oxygen transfer occurs inside an aerated zone of about 2 m3; experiments carried out with an industrially scaled HE in a 120 m3 test basin allowed to estimate that the kLa in this zone is about 700-800 h(-1). Applying a compartment model, it is then possible to determine the oxygen transfer capacity of the HE as a function of the transverse liquid flowrate. While this OC is 3 kg O2/h under the test basin conditions, it reaches up to 12 kg O2/h under industrial flow conditions. This value was obtained in the aerobic biological treatment of the washing waters of a sugar refinery where two 33,000 m3 basins aerated by 152 HE could degrade 35 t/d of COD.

Yeast suspension filtration: flux enhancement using an upward gas/liquid slug flow-application to continuous alcoholic fermentation with cell recycle.

This study deals with the use of an upward gas/liquid slug flow to reduce tubular mineral membrane fouling. The injection of air into the feedstream is designed to create hydrodynamic conditions that destabilize the cake layer over the membrane surface inside the filtration module complex. Experimental study was carried out by filtering a biological suspension (yeast) through different tubular mineral membranes. The effects of operating parameters, including the nature of the membrane, liquid and gas flowrates, and transmembrane pressure, were examined. When external fouling was the main limiting phenomenon, flux enhancements of a factor of three could be achieved with gas sparging compared with single liquid phase crossflow filtration. The economic benefits of this unsteady technique have also been examined. To investigate the possibility of long-term operation of the two-phase flow principle, dense cell perfusion cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were carried out in a fermentor coupled with an ultrafiltration module. The air injection allowed a high and stable flux to be maintained over 100 h of fermentation, with a final cell concentration of 150 g dry weight/L. At equal biomass level, a twofold gain in flux could be attained compared with classical steady crossflow filtration at half the cost.

Mixing and phase hold-ups variations due to gas production in anaerobic fluidized-bed digesters: influence on reactor performance

The influence of mixing and phase hold-ups on gas-producing fluidized-bed reactors was investigated and compared with an ideal flow reactor performance (CSTR). The liquid flow in the anaerobic fluidized bed reactor could be described by the classical axially dispersed plug flow model according to measurements of residence time distribution. Gas effervescence in the fluidized bed was responsible for bed contraction and for important gas hold-up, which reduced the contact time between the liquid and the bioparticles. These results were used to support the modeling of large-scale fluidized-bed reactors. The biological kinetics were determined on a 180-L reactor treating wine distillery wastewater where the overall total organic carbon uptake velocity could be described by a Monod model. The outlet concentration and the concentration profile in the reactor appeared to be greatly influenced by hydrodynamic limitations. The biogas effervescence modifies the mixing characteristics and the phase hold-ups. Bed contraction and gas hold-up data are reported and correlated with liquid and gas velocities. It is shown that the reactor performance can be affected by 10% to 15%, depending on the mode of operation and recycle ratio used. At high organic loading rates, reactor performance is particularly sensitive to gas effervescence effects. Copyright 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Comprehensive modeling of methanogenic biofilms in fluidized bed systems: Mass transfer limitations and multisubstrate aspects.

A cognitive model for anaerobic digestion in fluidized bed reactors is developed. The general pathway of the process is divided into five main reactions performed by different bacterial groups. Molecular diffusion of each substrate involved in the reaction scheme is described. Effectiveness factor calculations are performed in steady state for each bacterial group taken into account in the process. The case of a single substrate removal is discussed, and optimal biofilm sizes are found. Sequential substrate removal is investigated, and different kinetic regimes are characterized. The influence of biofilm size and primary substrate removal is discussed in the case of standard concentrations in the liquid phase. This study shows that, according to the theoretical model the limiting step of the process may be different and depends in a large way on mass transfer effects. Finally, importance of biofilm size is compared for acidogenic and methano-genic steps: each reaction is found to be optimized for different biofilm thicknesses. This result may be of interest for design purposes and further dynamic modeling. Concluding remarks concerning the validation of the model are made, and a comparison to experimental data from the literature is presented. (c) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Mechanism of enhanced oxygen transfer in fermentation using emulsified oxygen-vectors.

Limitations of oxygen transfer in fermentation can be solved using auxiliary liquids immiscible in the aqueous phase. The liquids (called oxygen-vectors) used in this study were hydrocarbon (n-dodecane) and perfluorocarbon (forane F66E) in which oxygen is highly soluble (54.9 mg/L in n-dodecane and 118 mg/L in forane F66E at 35 degrees C in contact with air at atmospheric pressure). It has been demonstrated that the use of n-dodecane emulsion in a culture of Aerobacter aerogenes enabled a 3. 5-fold increase of the volumetric oxygen transfer coefficient(k(L)a) calculated on a per-liter aqueous phase basis. The droplet size of the vector played a crucial role in the phenomena. When a static contact between gas bubble and vector droplet was established in water, the vector covered the bubble, in agreement with positive values of the spreading coefficient for these fluids. The determination of the oxygen transfer coefficients (k(L)) in a reactor with a definite interfacial area enabled the main resistance to be located in the boundary layer of the waterside either for a gas-water or a vector-water interface. Because oxygen consumption by weakly hydrophobic cells can only occur in the aqueous phase, the oxygen transfer is achieved according to the following pathway: gas-vector-water-cell. Finally, a mechanism for oxygen transfer within this four-phased system is proposed.