Avaliação da eficiência de um sistema biológico para tratamento de emissões atmosféricas

Abstract

Air pollution has become one of the biggest environmental problems after the industrial revolution. With this, beyond the problems of global warming and respiratory problems are also related to the odor produced by volatile compounds. To try to remedy the odor and reduce global warming emissions coming from this work reproduced in a laboratory scale biological reactor based on microalgae and bacteria. The first work by absorbing CO2 for use in their metabolic processes by the process of photosynthesis, thus freeing oxygen to the environment. The second use volatile organic compounds as an energy source, thus reducing odor emissions. The work was carried out at a steakhouse downtown Curitiba - PR suffering daily with the social problems caused by the chimney and aims to evaluate the efficiency and gain parameters for the construction of a pilot project. For quantification of microalgae were performed daily measurements of chlorophyll in order to calculate the biomass present and relate it to the absorption of CO2. As a batch reactor was used four flasks of 500 mL each, one for white test (only atmospheric air being injected), and the other three, with injection of smoke collected during the hours of operation from the grill. The chlorophyll content was analyzed by testing absorbance in a spectrophotometer and the data plotted in the graph. To quantify the bacteria counts were performed by the microbiology laboratory of the Institute of Technology of Paraná. Analyses were made in the first and last day of each batch for later comparison of the amount of bacteria start and end. To test the odor, sensory perception was used five different technicians daily. Microalgae, comparing the growth in the white crops and grew about 10% more in the second over the first. The bacteria remained stable ranging from 104 to 105 CFU / mL. The numbers achieved satisfactory results in relation to clearance of smell, 72% of the crops did not show the characteristic smell of smoke. With these data it was possible to obtain the parameters for the pilot project. The work presented is both technically and environmentally feasible, but further studies are necessary to build a better economic thinking of this project on an industrial scale.