Steady state models for the biofiltration of styrene/air mixtures

This paper gives some simple mathematical models for the biofiltration of styrene. Two different biofilters were used, with diameters of 50 and 100 mm. Granular activated carbon was used as the packing material (Silcarbon type SC40, particle diameter of 4-6 mm). The styrene level was measured at the inlet, outlet, and intermediate points to give a mass concentration profile through the reactors. The investigated data were divided into the three sets of experimental conditions. The changing parameters were the inlet concentration of styrene and flow rate of air. (However, the mass flow-rate of styrene was held approximately constant). The bio-reactions broadly followed first order kinetics. In addition, a modified Ottengraf's first order kinetic model was developed and applied to see if it was possible to get a better fit. We found that values of k= 0.1295 g m-3 and P = -0.0211 s-1 in following equation: (γg+ k/γgi + k) = exp (P h/ug)gave a reasonable fit to all the experiments, but that better accuracy could be obtained by using three separate fits for each group of experiments.