6. Future Prospects

Biological treatment of odours is becoming more common as the experience with, and confidence in these technologies increases. As the research continues and the technology advances and develops ways to improve removal efficiencies, the capital costs of biological treatment will continue to become more competitive with carbon and chemical scrubbers on a capital cost basis. As the capital cost gap narrows, this will result in biological technologies being selected more often based on life-cycle cost over competing technologies. The continued optimization of biological systems for what they do best and combining with other technologies to address their shortcomings will also serve to promote the proliferation of biological technologies. Research continues on biological systems in the private and public sectors. New medias and concepts are being developed and tested in order to produce higher loading rates to bring costs down and increase removal efficiencies. Biofiltration will play a major role in the treatment of organic and inorganic emissions from a variety of industrial and waste water treatment processes. Biofiltration technology for purification of exhaust gases from pulp and paper industry has a great potential. Very little information directly related to the industry is available, although reasonably good information is available on the biofiltration of organic compounds similar to those found in the exhaust gases of pulp and paper industry.