Performance evaluation and model analysis of BTEX contaminated air in corn-cob biofilter system

Biofiltration of BTEX with corn-cob packing material have been performed for a period of 68 days in five distinct phases. The overall performance of a biofilter has been evaluated in terms of its elimination capacity by using 3-D mesh techniques. Maximum removal efficiency was found more than 99.85% of all four compounds at an EBRT of 3.06 min in phase I for an inlet BTEX concentration of 0.0970, 0.0978, 0.0971 and 0.0968 g m−3, respectively. Nearly 100% removal achieved at average BTEX loadings of 20.257 g m−3 h−1 to biofilter. A maximum elimination capacity (EC) of 20.239 g m−3 h−1 of the biofilter was obtained at inlet BTEX load of 20.391 g m−3 h−1. Moreover, using convection–diffusion reaction (CDR) model for biofilter depth shows good agreement with the experimental values for benzene, toluene and ethyl benzene, but for o-xylene the model results deviated from the experimental.