Efficiency Analysis of Sequential Biotrickling- Biofiltration Treatment Systems for Emissions Control for Two Types of Petrochemical VOC Applications

摘要

The aim of this study was to compare the performance of a pilot and field-scale sequential biotrickling-biofiltration unit to remove hazardous air pollutants from two different oil and gas industry emissions. GC-MS characterization data indicated higher concentration of the aromatic compounds such as benzene and xylene in the wastewater sump at CITGO, Corpus Christi compared to the headspace of the storage tanks at Apache TAMU#2 tank battery, Snook. On the other hand, the concentration of the less water soluble compounds such as alkanes and alkenes were higher in the field test compared to the pilot test.The low concentration of the more biodegradable compounds such as benzene at the inlet of the full-scale unit at the upstream production site compared to the inlet of the pilot-scale system at the downstream refinery process unit led to the low concentration of the carbon and energy source for the microorganisms, low biomass growth and consequently lower destruction of the VOCs in the full-scale unit compared to the pilot scale unit. From an engineering perspective, comparison of the pilot and full-scale plant results indicates that the pilot study of the BTF-BF performance could be a timesaving tool for obtaining valuable data for the scale-up.