Abstract
Experiments were conducted in a laboratory-scale biofilter to assess the ability of a fixed-film biological process to treat an air stream containing β-caryophyllene, a sesquiterpene emitted by a variety of conifer trees as well as industrial wood processing operations. Treatment performance was evaluated under a variety of pollutant loading conditions and nutrient supply rates over an operational period lasting more than 240 days. At empty bed contact times (EBCTs) as low as 10 s and daily average pollutant loading rate as high as 24.2 g C/(m3 h) (grams pollutant measured as carbon per cubic meter packed bed volume per hour), removal efficiencies in excess of 95 % were observed when sufficient nutrients were supplied. Results demonstrate that, as with biofilters treating other compounds, biofilters treating β-caryophyllene can experience local nutrient limitations that result in diminished performance. The biofilter successfully recovered high removal efficiency within a few days after resumption of pollutant loading following a 14-day interval of no contaminant loading. Construction of a 16S rRNA gene library via pyrosequencing revealed the presence of a high proportion of bacteria clustering within the genera Gordonia (39.7 % of the library) and Rhodanobacter (37.6 %). Other phylotypes detected at lower relative abundances included Pandoraea (6.2 %), unclassified Acetobacteraceae (5.5 %), Dyella (3.3 %), unclassified Xanthomonadaceae (2.6 %), Mycobacterium (1.8 %), and Nocardia (0.6 %). Collectively, results demonstrate that β-caryophyllene can be effectively removed from contaminated gas streams using biofilters.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Governor’s Biotechnology Initiative of the Louisiana Board of Regents Grant BOR#15 Enhancement of the LSU Hazardous Substance Research Center Environmental Biotechnology Initiative. We thank Y. Xiao of the LSU Socolofsky Microscopy Center for assistance with microscopy.
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Moe, W.M., Hu, W., Key, T.A. et al. Removal of the sesquiterpene β-caryophyllene from air via biofiltration: performance assessment and microbial community structure. Biodegradation 24, 685–698 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-012-9616-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-012-9616-z