Pressure drop and gas distribution in compost based biofilters: medium mixing and composition effects

The pressure drop and gas distribution in four different filter media for compost biofilters were studied as a function of three superficial loading rates of moist air and by carrying out the filter medium homogenization by mixing. The filter media used were compost, compost with cane bagasse, lava rock and aerobic sludge previously dried to 60% of water content. The pressure drop increased when lava rock and cane bagasse were used as bulking agents. The same trend was observed when water was added to the filter medium. Pressure drop tended to decrease with time as flow channels were formed inthe filter media. Tracer studies were carried out to quantify the gas distribution and the effect of channel formation. For the biofilters submitted to an airflow of 10, 40 and 70 l min(-1), an average normalized time of 0.96, 0.89 and 0.82, respectively were obtained. The results showed that channel formation was increased as the superficial loading rate was also increased. An operational practice that this work proposes and evaluates to improve gas distribution and medium moisture control is to carry out intermittent medium mixing. The medium moisture and void volume achieved under mixing condition were around 50% and 0.40, respectively with an average constant pressure drop of 11, 45 and 78 cm of water m(-1) for air velocities of 75, 300 and 525 m h(-1).