BIOFILTRATION FOR REMOVAL OF PCE AND TCE VAPORS FROM CONTAMINATED AIR

Bench scale biofilters (vapor phase bioreactors) treating a mixture of gases from the headworks of a wastewater treatment plant have removed perchloroethylene and trichloroethylene from the air. In a biofilter using carbon as the support medium, an initial period of adsorptive removal was followed by biological removal of 61% of the PCE and 48% of the TCE. In a compost biofilter, removals after the initial period were 40% for PCE and 49% for TCE. The reactors were dominantly aerobic. Because aerobic degradation of PCE has not been observed, it is believed that degradation occurred by reductive dechlorination in anaerobic zones within the particles of the support medium.