Biofiltration: Past, present and future directions

Over the last two decades, biofiltration has become a key component in the control of odorous emissions from composting facilities, wastewater treatment plants, confined animal facilities, food industry, and other sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odors. However, in the past, many decision makers at these facilities shied away from biofiltration technology because they had heard of system failures at other plants. Since that time, improvements in design and operation of biofilters have led to improvements in biofilter process performance and reliability. At the same time, we have begun to understand the limitations of biofilters and when other technologies may be more appropriate.