Journal of Health and Safety at Work

Introduction: Volatile organic compounds such as xylene, which are the main constituents of the oil and petrochemical industries, have serious impacts on health and can cause adverse effects on the environment. It is clear that release of these compounds into the environment should be controlled. The two-phases partitioning stirred tank bio-reactor is one of the newest methods for treating these compounds which have few side-effects besides of having appropriate efficiency since itdestroyscontaminant completely and transform it tosafer compounds.

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Material and Method: In this study, a two phase partitioning stirred tank bio-reactor, in lab scale, was used for treating the gas stream containing xylene vapors. The aqueous phase containing the bacteria Pseudomonas putida and nutrients inserted into the bioreactor with 3:1 ratio and system performance was evaluated for 432 hours in the concentration range of 1000 mg/m3 to 3500 mg/m3

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Result: Empirical findings of this study showed that the maximum, minimum and average of removal of xylene vapors by stirred two phase bioreactor containing a pure strain of Pseudomonas putida were 94.00, 54.00 and 84.94 percent, respectively.Furthermore, maximum, minimum and average of elimination capacity of xylene were obtained 93.00,24.00 and 62.02 g/m3/h, respectively

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Conclusion: Overall, the results of the present research revealed that the application of two phase stirred tank bioreactors (TPPBs) containing pure strains of Pseudomonas putida was successful for treatment of air streams with xylene.