Biological treatment of odorous gas is an alternative to conventional physicochemical processes. A newly-isolated and identified Brevibacillus borstelensis GIGAN1 was seeded on active carbon (AC) and ceramic particle (CP) in a twin biotrickling filter (BTF) to comparatively probe the removal performance of gaseous thioanisole, respectively. At empty bed residence time (EBRT) of 66 s, 100% of thioanisole (<= 3 g L-1) could be removed on AC; while 100% of thioanisole could only be achieved for <= 1.2 mg L-1 on CP. Further increase thioanisole concentration to 3 mg L-1, higher elimination capacity was obtained on AC (162.51 g m(-3) h(-1)) than CP (139.93 g m(-3) h(-1)). Further, longer EBRT was also beneficial to thioanisole removal. Additionally, the biomass accumulation did not lead to the column clogging. The biodeodorization mechanism of thioanisloe were also tentatively proposed. Overall, an unprecedented performance could be achieved by the novel GIGAN1 in BTF for thioanisole biodegradation. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.