Interaction of gaseous aromatic and aliphatic compounds in thermophilic biofilters

Two thermophilic biofilters were applied in treating a mixture of gaseous aromatic (benzene) and aliphatic compounds (hexane) to evaluate the interaction of the compounds. The performance of the biofilters was investigated in terms of removal efficiencies, elimination capacity, kinetic analysis, interaction indices, and microbial metabolic characteristics. Results showed that the removal performance of benzene was unaffected by the addition of hexane. The removal efficiencies of benzene were maintained at approximately 80% and the biodegradation rate constant was maintained at 120 h−1. However, the removal efficiencies of hexane decreased significantly from 60% to 20% and the biodegradation rate constant exhibited a distinct decrease from 93.59 h−1 to 56.32 h−1. The interaction index of benzene with the addition of hexane was −0.029, which indicated that hexane had little effect on the degradation of benzene. By contrast, the interaction index of hexane by benzene was −0.557, which showed that benzene inhibited the degradation of hexane significantly. Similar conclusions were obtained about the substrate utilization. Moreover, the utilization degree of carbon sources and the microbial metabolic activities in the biofilter treating hexane were significantly improved with the addition of benzene, whereas the addition of hexane had a slight effect on the microbial communities in the biofilter treating benzene. Conclusions could be obtained that when mixtures of benzene and hexane were treated using biofilters, the degradation of benzene, which was more easily degradable, was dominant and unaffected; whereas the degradation of hexane, which was less easily degradable, was inhibited because of the changing of microbes.