AVS 50th International Symposium
    Technology for Sustainability Thursday Sessions
       Session AT-ThM

Paper AT-ThM5
Environmental Accounting of Air Biofiltration using an Energy-based Life-cycle Assessment Approach

Thursday, November 6, 2003, 9:40 am, Room 320

Session: Development and Implementation of Sustainable Processes
Presenter: D.R. Tilley, University of Maryland, College Park
Authors: D.R. Tilley, University of Maryland, College Park
P. Ganeshan, University of Maryland, College Park
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Biofilters are shown to remove gaseous pollutants such as volatile organic compounds, hydrogen sulfide, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide from industrial waste emissions. Biofiltration integrates one of nature's most free services into a sustainable technology that has environmental advantages not shared with competitive technologies. To account for the free services of nature used in biofiltration, life-cycle assessment (LCA) was integrated with the solar emergy methodology (emergy is the total amount of energy of one form required directly and indirectly to make a product or provide a service). Our evaluation demonstrates the ability of emergy-based LCA to quantify, and place into perspective, the importance of natural processes in ameliorating industrial wastes. It also quantifies the life-cycle advantages that biofiltration possesses over other treatment technologies.