Progress 09/01/20 to 04/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of TDA's proposed technology would be the farming industry, where ammonia emissions from livestock are a concern. Poultry farms are the largest source of ammonia emissions, followed by non-dairy and dairy cattle farms, with poultry farms emiting1.9 million metric tons of ammonia per year. This proposal is responsive to the USDA SBIR Solicitation Topic 8.4 "Conservation of Natural Resources" FY 2020 Special Research Priority No. 3, "Air Resources" addressing the need to develop new and improved technologies to reduce air pollution stemming from poultry production systems while increasing the productivity and profitability of the poultry farm. High levels of ammonia from poultry farm operations are not only a health concern for farm workers and general public, they also reduce the productivity of the animals and cause chronic health problems in both animals and human workers. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In Phase I, we demonstrated the technical feasibility and economic viability of using a bi-functional sorbent/catalyst wheel to remove ammonia from poultry house ventilation air (to protect workers and animals) and control the ammonia emissions from poultry farms (to protect the neighbors and environment). TDA's technology will employ a low energy penalty multifunctional system that will convert ammonia to nitrogen and water without the need of additional technologies to neutralize adsorbed ammonia. The process is continuous and simple, providing uninterrupted ammonia removal while reducing operating costs. The specific goal of the Phase I project was to develop a high capacity bi-functional sorbent/ catalyst system that can remove ammonia from poultry house ventilation systems down to ppb levels and demonstrate its techno- economic viability. The Phase I project is divided into five technical tasks. In the first task, we prepared a variety of bi-functional sorbent/catalyst formulations with different chemical and physical properties first as pellets/granules. In Task 2 we screened these materials to determine their ability to remove ammonia and identify the ammonia oxidation conditions (catalyst composition, space velocity, temperature) to optimize conversion and selectivity. In this task, we also characterized these sorbents/catalysts to determine their chemical composition, physical structure and mechanical strength and to understand the adsorption/oxidation mechanism to further improve their performance. In Task 3, we selected the best formulation and the optimum operating conditions to evaluate life and long-term durability through more than 200 adsorption/oxidation cycles. In Task 4, we carried out a system analysis and process design to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of the concept. In Task 5 we will summarize the results. In the Phase I work, we synthesized over 10 different sorbent and catalyst formulations and optimized their structure for use in the SorboCAT (bi-functional sorbent/catalyst) system. With TDA's ammonia sorbent we demonstrated a highly regenerable ammonia sorbent with a capacity of > 3.4 mg/cc (i.e., 3.4 kg ammonia removed per cubic meter of sorbent) with adsorption at 30 and desorption at 250 deg. Celsius at a very high space velocity of 108,000 per hour. The sorbents developed in Phase I were able to reduce ammonia concentrations from 20-50 ppm to less than the limit of detection (LOD) of the analytical instrument (10 ppb). We then carried out a 200+ cycles in the fixed bed tests with the best (most stable) sorbent formulation; the tests showed that the sorbent was stable through all of the adsorption/ desorption cycles, achieving a stable capacity of > 3.4 mg/cc. Next, we showed that TDA's ammonia oxidation catalyst selectively oxidizes ammonia to nitrogen and water with complete conversion (~100%) at 250 degree Celsius and does not generate any harmful side products such as nitrogen oxides. Overall we demonstrated stable performance of the catalyst over 120 hours showing complete (~100%) conversion at 250 degree Celsius. In the ammonia removal system, the catalyst only oxidizes a slip stream of the poultry air (ventilation stream) reducing the amount of catalyst used and its replacement cost. The expected life of the catalyst is 7 years.

Publications