Packing materials play a key role in the performance of bioreactors for waste gas treatment and particularly in biofilter applications. In this work, the performance of two biofilters packed with different packing materials, operated in parallel for the treatment of relatively high inlet concentration of MEK was studied. The reactors were compared for determining the suitability of cornstack and press mud as packing materials for biofiltration of MEK. Biofilters achieved maximum removal efficiency (RE) of 98 and 95 % throughout its operation at an EBRT of 2.8 min for an inlet concentration of 0.2 gm<sup>-3</sup> with press mud and cornstack based biofilter respectively, which is quite significant than the values reported in the literature. Elimination capacities of MEK increased with the increase in influent MEK loading, but an opposite trend was observed for the removal efficiency for the biofilter. In general, press mud exhibited a better performance than cornstack in terms of elimination capacity and removal efficiency. The experimental results for both packing materials were compared with the values obtained from the Ottengraf–Van Den Oever model for zero-order diffusion-controlled region. The critical inlet concentration, critical inlet load and biofilm thickness were estimated using the model predictions.
Keywords: Biofiltration; MEK Vapor; Elimination Capacity; Cornstack; Press Mud
