Author(s)

Tong Zhou, Jue Dai, Jie Guan, Xiaopu Wang, Ting Gao, Hao Yuan, Yaoguang Guo, Xufeng Zhai and Congbing Ni

Corresponding Author

Jue Dai

ABSTRACT

In this study, the self-designed biotrickling filter (BTF) was used to treat toluene waste gas, and the activated sludge was used as the bacteria source to directly biofilm culturing. The performance of the biofilm culturing stage of BTF and the effect of BTF on the removal efficiency of toluene in the stable operation stage were explored. Furthermore, High-throughput sequencing was used to analyze the total bacterial diversity of the bacterial community attached to the biofilm. The experiment shows that the system temperature is 22-28 ℃ , the toluene intake is 15 L/min, the toluene import concentration is 100~500 mg/m3, the nutrient spray rate is 60 ml/min, activated sludge can finish microbial acclimation in 30 days, and the removal efficiency is maintained at about 90%. The removal efficiency is still stable at around 90% by changing the toluene intake by 5~25 L/min, the toluene import concentration of 100~800 mg/m3 and the nutrient spray rate of 10~100 mL/min. The toluene import concentration increased to 800 mg/m3, and the removal efficiency decreased. But the removal rate could quickly reach 96% or more after the concentration was lowered. High-throughput analysis of microbial colonies showed that Proteobacteria are the main dominant species, and Gammaproteobacteria is the most abundant of the proteobacteria. In addition, the Simpson index was 0.983319, the Shannon index was 7.72, and the Chao1 and ACE indices were both 1205.00, indicating that the microbial community diversity was high and the community richness was also a higher level.

KEYWORDS

Biotrickling filter, simulated toluene, toluene removal efficiency, highthroughput sequencing