Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

2014

Journal or Book Title

Transactions of the ASABE

Volume

57

Issue

1

First Page

211

Last Page

217

DOI

10.13031/trans.57.10206

Abstract

The effect of ventilation rate (VR) on ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions from co-composting dead hens mixed with hen manure was quantified. Three VR levels of 0.9, 0.7, and 0.5 m3 h-1 were evaluated. Gaseous concentrations were measured using a multi-gas infrared photoacoustic analyzer, VR was measured with flowmeters, and the gas emission rate was computed from the VR and gas concentration. Decomposition of the carcasses over the 11-week composting period was greater than 88%. VR was found to significantly affect NH3, CO2, and CH4 emissions (p < 0.05). Specifically, cumulative emissions per kg of initial matter for VR of 0.9, 0.7, and 0.5 m3 h-1 were, respectively, 2.4, 2.0, and 1.2 g NH3; 78, 66, and 42 g CO2; 120, 90, and 52 mg CH4; and 6.4, 6.1, and 5.1 mg N2O. Hence, the study results suggest that the ventilation rate can be adjusted to reduce NH3 and GHG emissions from animal mortality compositing.

Comments

This article is from Transactions of the ASABE 57 (2014): 211–217, doi:10.13031/trans.57.10206. Posted with permission.

Access

Open

Copyright Owner

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Download

Share

COinS