Biotechnologies have emerged as a promising solution for indoor air purification with the potential to overcome the inherent limitations of indoor air treatment. These limitations include the low concentrations and variability of pollutants and mass-transfer problems caused by pollutant hydrophobicity. A new latex-based biocoating was herein optimized for the abatement of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) toluene, trichloroethylene, n-hexane, and α-pinene using acclimated activated sludge dominated by members of the phylum Patescibacteria. The influence of the water content, the presence of water absorbing compounds, the latex pretreatment, the biomass concentration, and the pollutant load was tested on VOC removal efficiency (RE) by varying the formulation of the mixtures. Overall, hexane and trichloroethylene removal was low (<30%), while high REs (>90%) were consistently recorded for toluene and pinene. The assays demonstrated the benefits of operating at high water content in the biocoating, either by including mineral medium or water absorbing compounds in the latex-biomass mixtures. The performance of the latex-based biocoating was likely limited by VOC mass-transfer rather than by biomass concentration in the biocoating. The latex-based biocoating supported a superior toluene and pinene removal than biomass in suspension when VOC loading rate was increased by a factor of 4.

生物技术已成为室内空气净化的一种有前途的解决方案，有可能克服室内空气处理的固有局限性。这些限制包括污染物的低浓度和可变性以及污染物疏水性引起的传质问题。本文优化了一种新的基于乳胶的生物涂层，以减少挥发性有机化合物 (VOC) 甲苯、三氯乙烯、n-己烷和 α-蒎烯使用由 Patescibacteria 门成员主导的驯化活性污泥。通过改变混合物的配方，测试了含水量、吸水化合物的存在、乳胶预处理、生物质浓度和污染物负荷对 VOC 去除效率 (RE) 的影响。总体而言，己烷和三氯乙烯的去除率较低 (<30%)，而甲苯和蒎烯的 REs 率较高 (>90%)。通过在乳胶-生物质混合物中加入矿物介质或吸水化合物，这些测定证明了在生物涂层中在高水含量下操作的好处。乳胶基生物涂层的性能可能受 VOC 传质而非生物涂层中生物质浓度的限制。