Mitigating ammonia emission from broilers with frequent litter amendment application
Date
2014
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Litter amendments are widely used to reduce indoor ammonia (NH3 ) concentrations in boiler houses. This study evaluated NH3 mitigation efficiencies of three amendments: sodium bisulfate (PLT), active carbon (AC), and zeolite. Lab-scale batch experiments were carried out to investigate the adsorption characteristics of zeolite on NH3 in Chapter 2. The effects of retention times (0.73 and 1.29s), moisture contents (0, 5, and 10%), and zeolite particle sizes (mesh -14+40 and -8+40) on NH 3 ) absorption characteristics were examined. Smaller size of zeolite increases air resistance, but does not change NH3 ) adsorption rate. As moisture level increases from 0 to 10%, the NH3 adsorption rate is predictable to be smaller. NH3 ) adsorption rates were obtained 1.4 and 2.4 mg NH3 )/g zeolite at 0.73 and 1.29 s retention times, respectively. Another study was conducted to evaluate the connection between litter water content and amendment application rate on NH3 ) emissions from poultry litter (Chapter 3). At moisture levels of 20, 30, and 40%, three separate amendments of sodium bisulfate (PLT), active carbon, and zeolite under one control and three different application rates, were topically applied to broiler litter. The PLT application significantly (p<0.05) reduced NH 3 ) emission from the litter during the first two weeks. In comparison, the NH 3 ) emission reduction efficiency of the three litter amendments ranked as: PLT > Zeolite > active charcoal. PLT and zeolite were further conducted in a laboratory study with birds raised in environmentally controlled chambers (Chapter 4). PLT and Zeolite were frequently applied on the litter with three different application strategy, PLT was applied with: 0(Ctrl), 244 g/wk-m 2 (weekly), 488 g/2wk-m2 (bi-weekly), and 244 g/m 2 for week 3 and 6 and 488 g/m2 for week 5 (variable); zeolite was applied on two strategies: weekly-Z: 1464 g/wk-m2 ; bi-weekly-Z: 2928 g/wk-m2 . The NH3 ) emission reduction rate with PLT treatments ranged from 59.5% to 100% during broiler grow out period and cumulated NH3 ) emission reduction from all the three PLT treatment ranged from 89% to 95%. Both PLT and zeolite treatments showed no significant influence on production performances (body weight, feed conversion, and foot pad quality).