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Re-acclimation performance and microbial characteristics of a thermophilic biofilter for NOx removal from flue gas

  • Environmental biotechnology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Currently, a novel chemical absorption-biological reduction (CABR) integrated process, employing Fe(II)EDTA as a solvent, is being under development to reduce the cost of NOx removal from flue gas. In this work, the NO removal profile, re-acclimation performance, and microbial characteristics in a thermophilic biofilter were investigated at the conditions typical to CABR process. The biofilter comprised of four layers of packing material with a surface area of 1200 m2 m−3. Experimental results revealed that the biofilter could remove 95 % of the fed NO at typical flue gas conditions. As the gas residence time varied from 90 to 15 s, the NO removal efficiency decreased from 100 to 56.5 % due to the NO mass transfer limitation. The longer period of the biofilter shutdown required more time for its re-acclimation. For example, after 8-day shutdown, the biofilter was re-acclimated in 32 h. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis of PCR-amplified product showed that Pseudomonas, a group of denitrifier, was dominant in the biofilter. Because the Pseudomonas was abundant at the bottom layer of packed-bed, the bottom layer contributed to 60–70 % of the total NO removal. In addition, Pseudomonas gradually faded away along the gas flow path from the bottom to the top of biofilter, resulting in a significant decrease in NO removal at the other three packed-bed layers. These observed results will provide the process engineering and scale-up data with respect to the biofilter operations to help advance the CABR process to pilot-scale testing.

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Acknowledgments

The work was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21276233, No. 21306166), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (No. 2013 M541783), and the Post doctor Science Preferential Funding of Zhejiang Province, China (No. BSH1301019).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Author notes

  1. Shihan Zhang

    Present address: Illinois State Geological Survey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Industrial Ecology and Environment, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Yuquan Campus, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Shihan Zhang, Yinfeng Xia, Jingkai Zhao, Nan Liu & Wei Li

  2. Institute of Environmental Engineering, Zhejiang University, Zijingang Campus, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Shihan Zhang, Han Chen, Yinfeng Xia & Wei Li

Authors
  1. Shihan Zhang
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  2. Han Chen
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  3. Yinfeng Xia
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  4. Jingkai Zhao
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  5. Nan Liu
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  6. Wei Li
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei Li.

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Zhang, S., Chen, H., Xia, Y. et al. Re-acclimation performance and microbial characteristics of a thermophilic biofilter for NOx removal from flue gas. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 6879–6887 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6585-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6585-2

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