Ammonia volatilization following surface application of raw and treated liquid swine manure

Abstract

The treatment of liquid swine manure (LSM) is primarily intended to produce energy and/ or decrease P concentration in the liquid fraction, but may have a simultaneous impact on its potential for N volatilization. We compared NH 3 volatilization in the field following surface application (May 2004; May 2005; September 2005) of untreated LSM and the liquid fraction of LSM (hereafter called treated LSM) that had undergone either natural decantation, filtration, anaerobic digestion, or anaerobic digestion ? flocculation. Though most treatments increased pH and the proportion of total ammoniacal N (TAN) in LSM, the proportion of applied TAN lost as NH 3 was 22% lower with treated than untreated LSMs. Most likely, the increased infiltration rate of treated LSMs, associated with reduction in dry matter, compensated for increases in TAN and pH. Emissions of NH 3 on the day of application were correlated with LSM pH (R 2 = 0.51) and were the highest with the digested and the digested ? flocculated LSMs. However, these LSMs generally emitted less NH 3 than the other LSMs on the following days. As a consequence, when the volatilization period was short (e.g., dry soil conditions), the proportion of applied N lost from the digested and the digested ? flocculated LSMs was similar or higher than the filtered and decanted LSMs. In contrast, when the volatilization period was long, the digested and digested ? flocculated LSMs emitted less NH 3 than the other treated LSMs. It can be concluded that LSM treatments tended to decrease NH 3 volatilization, compared to the untreated LSM; across application dates, the digested LSM most consistently reduced NH 3 -N losses whereas the filtered LSM was the least efficient.

Ammonia losses from the storage and application of raw and chemo-mechanically separated slurry

“…These values are in good agreement with those reported by Misselbrook et al (2005b) for field application of pig slurry with low TS content. Our study also confirms the tendency of the separated liquid fraction to emit lower proportions of applied TAN as NH 3 -N than raw slurry following land application, previously observed by other authors (e.g., Søgaard et al, 2002;Sommer et al, 2003;Misselbrook et al, 2005b;Balsari et al, 2008b;Balsari et al, 2009;Chantigny et al, 2009;Monaco et al, 2011). This was attributed to the low TS content in the liquid fraction, which permitted a more rapid infiltration of the TAN into the soil (Sommer and Hutchings, 2001).…”

Advanced Processing of Food Waste Based Digestate for Mitigating Nitrogen Losses in a Winter Wheat Crop

“…However, there are contradictory reports from the literature (Möller, 2015) suggesting that emissions are related to the feedstocks and soil properties to which they are applied, e.g., soil organic matter content, soil texture, water content, and aeration (Chantigny et al, 2009;Eickenscheidt et al, 2014). Reported N losses as N 2 O emissions following the application of food-based digestate vary from 0.45% (Nicholson et al, 2017) to 4-10% (Tiwary et al, 2015) of the total N applied.…”

Advanced treatment of liquid swine manure using physico-chemical treatment

“…It has been found that swine manure hosts and reservoirs human pathogenic bacteria, including Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella spp., among others [3]. Other problems associated with swine manure are odours caused by gases produced by decomposing manure in swine manure handling facilities or from land application [4]. Nutrients leaching below the root zone and into groundwater together with nutrients entering into surface water systems through runoff from manure storage facilities are other concerns caused by improper swine manure management.…”