Modeling an airlift bioscrubber for removal of airphase BTEX

Biological treatment of airstreams has been shown to be useful when the air streams are contaminated with low concentrations of volatile organic chemic als. One type of airphase biological reactor, the bioscrubber, has operatio nal advantages over the two other types of airphase bioreactors, biofilters , and biotrickling filters. The airlift bioscrubber is a new bioscrubber co nfiguration that offers some advantages over the conventional two-stage bio scrubber. In this work, a practical mathematical model was developed for th e airlift bioscrubber for the removal of aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, to luene, and ethylbenzene. The model input parameters were defined, and typic al values were determined from the published literature. A sensitivity anal ysis was conducted an the mathematical model to define the operating range of the airlift bioscrubber for the removal of the benzene, toluene, and eth ylene compounds. In addition, the sensitivity analysis results were used to define the range of testing that is appropriate for laboratory validation and calibration of the proposed mathematical model.