Case study: Biofiltration of styrene and butylacetate at a dashboard manufacturer

Holzindustie Bruchsal (HIB) was required to treat moderate levels of styrene emissions from their plastic dashboard manufacturing process. After evaluating many types of control technologies, HIB decided to install a Bioton biofiltration system from Monsanto Enviro‐Chem Systems Inc. (MEC). After the installation of the Bioton biofilter, HIB and MEC learned that large amounts of butylacetate were also present in the off‐gas stream. The presence of butylacetate was found to have inhibitory effects on the removal of styrene. Therefore, MEC performed a series of pilot and laboratory studies to determine if a bacteria strain could be identified that would be capable of removing styrene in the presence of butylacetate. It was found that a specific bacteria strain was capable of achieving high levels of styrene removal without inhibition from butylacetate in laboratory and pilot testing. This strain was inoculated into the full scale system. After acclimation, the full scale inoculation produced a consortium of bacteria that biologically removed the styrene from the dashboard manufacturing process in the presence of butylacetate.