A comparative assessment of the performance of fungal-bacterial and fungal biofilters for methane abatement

Alberto Vergara*, Felipe Ignacio Scott, Felipe Carreno-Lopez, German Aroca, Patricio Alejandro Moreno-Casas, Armando Gonzalez-Sanchez, Raúl Munoz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Methane is an important contributor to global warming and especially for dilute emissions, its oxidation to carbon dioxide can be difficult and expensive. Methane abatement was studied in a biofilter inoculated solely with the filamentous fungus Fusarium solani and compared to a biofilter inoculated with a consortium of methanotrophic bacteria (Methylomicrobium album and Methylocystis sp.) and F. solani. Results showed that F. solani degrade methane as the sole carbon source, achieving a maximum elimination capacity of 42.2 g m-3 h-1, nearly half of the maximum elimination capacity of the fungal-bacterial consortium. The second Damköhler number indicates that under the prevailing operational conditions, the fungal biofilter performance was bioreaction limited meanwhile external mass transport limitation was found on the fungal/methanotrophic bacteria biofilter. Results support the hypothesis that the beneficial effect of F. solani during CH4 biofiltration is mediated by biomass hydrophobicity rather than by an increase in the mass transfer area.

Translated title of the contributionUna evaluación comparativa del rendimiento de los biofiltros de hongos, bacterias y hongos para la reducción del metano
Original languageEnglish
Article number104421
JournalJournal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
Volume8
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The present work has been sponsored by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID Chile) (Fondecyt 1190521 and 1181040). F. Scott acknowledge acknowledges partial support from the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) , FONDECYT Program , grant number 11170081 . F. Carreno-Lopez, A. Vergara-Fernandez and F. Scott acknowledge financial support from grant Apoyo a la Formacion de Redes Internacionales entre Centros de Investigacion REDES190137 , CONICYT-PCI. The financial support from the R egional Government of Castilla y Leon and the EU-FEDER program ( CLU 2017-09 and UIC 071 ) is also gratefully acknowledged.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords

  • Biofiltration
  • Fusarium solani
  • Mass transfer coefficient
  • Mathematical modeling
  • Methane abatement

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