Comparison of the Depuration Efficiency for VOC and Other Odoriferous Compounds in Conventional and Advanced Biofilters in the Abatement of Odour Emissions from Municipal Waste Treatment Plants

Abstract

Our work is focused on the characterization and the comparison of the performance of two different types of biofilters: conventional biofilters and advanced biofilters, which in the last years have been succesfully installed in different Spanish large Mechanical Biological Treatment facilities (MBT). Biogenic VOC speciation by HRGC-MS has been performed at the inlet and the outlet of both types of biofilters in order to assess their treatment efficacy regarding odour abatement. Three different sampling and analysis techniques have been applied in this case: a) adsorption of analytes on activated charcoal tubes, and later extraction with CS₂ for GC-MS analysis, b) air sampling with Tedlar bags; SPME extraction of analytes for GC-MS analysis and c) adsorption of analytes on Thermal Desorption Tubes for analysis with an integrated ATD-GC-MS system.
Results demonstrate that advanced biofilters have significantly greater elimination efficiencies than conventional ones.