9415318 Ergas This is an award to support preliminary work on the potential use of hydrophobic membranes in a biofiltration process for removing volatile organic potential air pollutants from gaseous byproducts of chemical and process industries. The investigator plans on designing a laboratory scale membrane biofiltration system that will utilize either microporous or dense polymer hollow-fiber membranes to transfer the target volatile organic substances to a liquid medium. Biodegradation of the compounds is expected to occur on the membrane as well as in the liquid phase. The proposal leading to this award was submitted in response to NSF 93-130, Research Planning Grants for Women. Results are expected to provide information that can be used in determining the feasibility of the process and the basis for a more comprehensive research project that would determine conditions and engineering design parameters for this process to remove potential air pollutants from gaseous byproducts of industrial processes. ***
