M Karrabi - Laboratoire des Ecoulements Géophysiques et Industriels, UMR ۵۵۱۹ CNRS-UJF-G-INP, BP ۵۳X, Cedex ۰۹ Grenoble, France
P Séchet - Laboratoire des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, UMR ۵۵۶۴ CNRS-UJF-G-INP, BP ۵۳X, Cedex ۰۹ Grenoble, France.
Ch Morra - Laboratoire des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, UMR ۵۵۶۴ CNRS-UJF-G-INP, BP ۵۳X, Cedex ۰۹ Grenoble, France & Laboratoire des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, UMR ۵۵۶۴ CNRS-UJF-G-INP, BP ۵۳X, Cedex ۰۹ Grenoble, France.
Ch Geindreau

The effect of biofilm growth on the clogging of a biofilter is studied on a laboratory scale pilot. At the steady state, pressure, porosity and biomass concentration profiles are used to study the evolution of the permeability with the biomass content: it is seen that the EPS and biomass micro structuration have a strong effect on the permeability reduction. That explains why Kozeny-like models found in literature fail to predict the actual permeability values. This finding is of primary importance to derive correlations or theoretical permeability laws which can be implemented in simple, operational engineering models for the design of biofilters.

Biofilter, Biofilm, Permeability Reduction, Bioclogging