CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 68, 2018 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Selena Sironi, Laura Capelli Copyright © 2018, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. I SBN 978-88-95608-65-5; I SSN 2283-9216 Comparative Analysis of AOPs and Biological Processes for the Control of VOCs Industrial Emissions Giuseppina Oliva a , Tiziano Zarra a , Vincenzo Naddeo a , Raul Munoz b , Raquel Lebrero b , Roxana Ángeles b , Vincenzo Belgiorno a a Sanitary and Environmental Engineering Division (SEED), Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno; Italy b Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology Department, University of Valladolid. Valladolid, Spain goliva@unisa.it Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) emissions from a wide range of industrial plants have become a major issue in the framework of atmospheric pollution, due to their negative effects on human and environmental health. VOC-laden emissions are also responsible for odour annoyance. To comply with the stringent regulations and to avoid complaints from the population living near these plants, the most suitable treatment technologies should be identified and implemented. Chemical-physical off-gas treatments such as adsorption and scrubbing, are proven and tested technologies; however, they only promote the transfer of the contaminants from the gaseous to solid or liquid phase, and further treatments are thus required. Biological processes and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), instead, are able to support the degradation and mineralization of organic compounds, resulting in more effective solutions. This study presents and discusses a comparative analysis of the biological processes and AOPs for the removal of VOCs, focusing on assessing their potential application for industrial waste gas treatment. A numerical procedure, based on the quantification of a set of parameters classified into clusters, was proposed to evaluate the most suitable process for the treatment of the VOC-laden emissions in the different industrial sectors. The results, based on a semi-quantitative ranking of the different identified parameters, pointed out the weaknesses and strengths of the investigated processes. AOPs entailed high elimination capacities, but the emissions of hazardous by- products should be controlled and reduced. Biotechnologies have emerged as cost-effective and environmental friendly processes; however, the efficiencies of these processes are often limited by the presence of recalcitrant and toxic secondary metabolites. 1. Introduction Nowadays, the severe effects of air pollution on environment and human health has been worldwide recognized since the rising concern about global warming and atmospheric pollutants toxicity (Boyjoo et al., 2017). Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odours are well-known pollutants emitted into the atmosphere mainly from industrial facilities, waste and wastewater treatment plants. The exposure to VOCs has been related both to acute symptoms such as nausea, headaches, loss of consciousness and to chronic effect associated to mutagenicity and carcinogenicity risks (Son, 2017). The formation of ozone and PAN (peroxy- acetyl nitrate) could be also triggered by the emission of VOCs (Parmar and Rao, 2008). Along with these effects, the correlated odour emissions may cause annoyance and discomfort to the exposed people (Naddeo et al., 2016). Cost-effective and environmental friendly treatments are thus required to adequately remove VOCs and odours from industrial waste gas stream. Chemical-physical treatments are among the most used technologies and consequently they are characterized by an established knowhow. These treatments, however, do not support the degradation of the gaseous compounds, but only the transfer of the contaminants from the gas to the solid or liquid phase(Boyjoo et al., 2017). Biological and oxidation processes, instead, are able to promote the partial or complete degradation of these organic compounds, resulting into their mineralization. Consequently, these processes do not require further treatment of the phases to which the contamination may be transferred. Biotechnologies, despite the fact that show an effective removal with economic and environmental processes, are often limited by the presence of recalcitrant and toxic secondary DOI: 10.3303/CET1868076 Please cite this article as: Oliva G., Zarra T., Naddeo V., Munoz R., Lebrero R., Angeles R., Belgiorno V., 2018, Comparative analysis of aops and biological processes for the control of vocs industrial emissions, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 68, 451-456 DOI: 10.3303/CET1868076 451