High-performance microbial removal of ethanol from contaminated air

Ethanol vapour from air was removed using a bioreactor (2.7 m 3 ) packed with a novel engineered material consisting of a highly porous inorganic matrix coated with activated carbon. The system was operated over a period of two months varying the inlet ethanol between 90 and 2200 mg m –3 . Removal efficiencies ranging from 80 to 99.9% were obtained. A simplified kinetic model of the bioreactor was developed and used to estimate the maximum degradationrate and to predict thermal effects resulting from ethanol oxidation.