Progress 01/01/06 to 06/30/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: A surface aeration system featuring a novel design of an aerator module consisting of low-cost, commercially available venturi air injectors has been developed and evaluated for controlling odor emissions from open manure storages such as lagoons and ponds. Extensive lab-scale experiments were carried out in the University of Minnesota during the aerator module development stage followed by elaborately planned field experiments conducted on real manure lagoons in both Minnesota (swine) and Texas (poultry) to test the efficacy of the developed surface aeration system in controlling odor emission. The project information has been shared with communities of interest via various outlets such as refereed journals, conference papers and presentations, trade magazines, websites, email communications, University outreach events, etc. (three refereed publications with two more coming, four conference and symposium papers and presentations, and one popular press article). The Annual University of Minnesota Open House normally draws over 2500 attendants every year where the project research information has been presented since the inception of the project. Project oriented workshops open to all interested parties across the country have been developed and offered, which will continue to be offered into the years to come after the ending of this project. A link to the workshop materials has been established that can be accessed by anyone around the world (http://sroc.cfans.umn.edu/People/Faculty/JunZhu/SurfaceAeration/inde x.htm). Discussion is underway for possibly establishing a long-term demonstration site in MN for the newly developed surface aeration system with the assistance of the collaborating producer for this project. The research materials will also be presented in the Texas Animal Manure Management Workshop in September, 2009. The project has provided full and/or partial financial support for the training of three PhD graduate students and two postdoctoral associates over the project period (one PhD degree awarded based on this project in MN). PARTICIPANTS: Jun Zhu (PD), Professor, Southern Research and Outreach Center/Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota. His role includes overall management of the project, such as scheduling major progresses and activities considered essential to keep the project on track; developing protocols and procedures for all the experiments; advising graduate students; coordinating field experiments with the producer in Minnesota; coordinating extension and educational activities; attending annual PD meeting; and reporting. Saqib Mukhtar (co-PD), Associate Professor, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University. His role includes overseeing the field study conducted in Texas including site identification, sampling and monitoring, graduate student/post doc. advising, and extension and education programs development and delivery. Curtis Miller, Assistant Scientist, Southern Research and Outreach Center, University of Minnesota. He is mainly responsible for constructing, installing, and operating both lab- and farm-scale aeration units, helping graduate students collect air and liquid samples, and performing routine monitoring and maintenance of the aeration systems. Shafiqur Rahman, Assistant Professor (then post-doc), Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, North Dakota State University. His role includes assisting with fabrication of needed equipment and supplies, conducting farm scale experiments, collecting air and liquid samples, analyzing and compiling data, preparing educational materials, journal manuscripts and project reporting from TX site. Md Saidul Borhan, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department, Texas A&M University. He took the place of Shafiqur Rahman when Dr. Rahman took a faculty position with NDSU so Dr. Borhan assumed the same responsibility as Dr. Rahman for the project. Chunying Dong, PhD student, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota. Her role is to work with Curt Miller to conduct all lab- and farm-scale experiments, collect air and liquid samples, analyze and compile data, prepare materials for extension and information dissemination programs, and help the PD with reporting. Xiao Wu, PhD student, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota. Her role is to help Chunying Dong and Curt Miller in constructing aeration apparatus, conducting lab- and farm-scale experiments, collecting air and liquid samples, and analyzing. Liang Wang, PhD student, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota. Her role is similar to Xiao Wu. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences of this project are animal producers who use lagoons/ponds for manure storage (swine, poultry, and dairy), agricultural waste management engineers and consultants, state and local regulatory agencies related to air quality, university extension faculty and staff, animal scientists, and the general public interested in agricultural odor control and air quality. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The project asked for a one-year extension which was granted by CSREES in 2008.
Impacts
The project funds have led to the development of a low-cost but effective surface aeration system to control odor from open liquid manure lagoons and ponds. The capital cost for the new system was estimated at $8,360 and the operating cost was around $0.20 per pig finished and $0.038 per 100 eggs produced, indicating its affordability to the majority of swine and poultry producers. The knowledge gained from this project regarding aeration has added new information to the current knowledge reservoir in that aeration is not always cost prohibitive, which is different from the traditional views on its use for manure odor control, thus arousing a strong interest in knowing more about this technique among the potential technology users. The findings from this project published in both professional refereed journals and trade magazines (page charges paid for by the grant) has evidenced the significance of the contribution this project has made to the fundamental understanding of surface aeration used in agriculture. Based on the results from this project, it can be concluded that aeration can be an affordable technology for animal producers to combat the nuisance odor issue associated with liquid manure storages. The developed technology is ready for transfer to animal producers. The feedback from the collaborating swine producer where the surface aeration system was field evaluated was nothing but positive and a request was made to possibly install a full scale system on his lagoon next year. Producer's observation indicated that lagoon odor was actually reduced when the surface aeration system was in operation, resulting in better air quality for, and fewer complaints from, the surrounding neighbors. The impact of the findings from this project can be seen from the following selected emails received. "Your surface aeration system apparently worked because we received fewer complaints from our manure lagoon this year than last year. We look forward to your coming back next year to continue the study. I would like to learn how we might use your aeration system full scale on our pond" (from Willis E. Anthony, Josie's Pork Farm, Inc. 42505 County Road 15, St Peter, MN 56082). "Your article in National Hog Farmer about surface aeration provides evidence for what we have done for many years with a similar concept. Please note that our biological products might enhance your economical Aeration Apparatus for odor and sludge buildup. Thanks for your time in replying to me" (from Ronnie Kennedy Jr., President of Operations, Agriment Services, Inc., Beulaville, NC 28518). "Your article on aeration of liquid swine manure is getting widespread attention. Congratulations! You have plowed some ground that needed turning. Not many have measured odor in manure using VFA's. I believe this may be the best way to measure odor from liquids. Currently we have 5 aerated swine manure field projects underway in South Dakota. We certainly could use some help in assessing the results of these project. I look forward to further communication with you. Thank you for your kind attention and response" (from William F. Tooley, Director, SARC Management Group, Platte, SD 57369).
Publications
- Dong, C., J. Zhu, C. F. Miller. 2009. A Field-Scale Surface Aeration System to Reduce Odor Generation. Transactions of ASABE 52(2):615-620
- Dong, C., J. Zhu, C. F. Miller. 2009. Evaluation of Six Aerator Modules Built on Venturi Air Injectors Using Clean Water Test. Water Science and Technology. In press.
- Zhu, J., Z. Zhang, and C. Miller. 2008. Manure Solids Content Effect on Odor Control by Aeration: Lab and Field Tests. ASABE paper No.: 083553.
- Rahman, S, S. Mukhtar, J. Zhu. 2008. Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of a Surface Aeration System to Control Odor from an Aerobic Poultry Lagoon at Texas. ASABE paper No.: 084110.
- Zhu, J., C. Miller, C. Dong, X. Wu, L. Wang, and S. Mukhtar. 2007. Development of An Aerator Module to Control Odor from Liquid Manure Storage Facilities. ASABE paper No.: 074054.
- Zhu, J, C. Dong, C. Miller, L. Wang, X. Wu, S. Mukhtar. 2008. A Surface Aeration Unit for Odor Control from Liquid Swine Manure Storage Facilities. CO-ROM in Proc. Mitigating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations. May 19-21, Des Moines, IA.
- Zhu, J., 2007. Surface Aerator Makes Lagoon Odor Reduction Affordable for Producers. National Hog Farmer 52(12): 27-27.
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Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/08
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The project was approved of a one-year, no-cost extension from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. The extension provides an opportunity to extensively examine the surface aeration system in a field setting. This report covers the work completed between Jan 1 and Dec 31, 2008. During this period, field tests were conducted to test the final aerator module featuring six venturi air injectors connected in parallel. The final aeration apparatus was placed on the collaborative swine manure lagoon in late May, which covered a third of acre liquid surface and run by a 1.5 hp centrifugal water pump stationed on the berm. The experiment started in mid-June and ran through mid-October, resulting in a running period of 4 months. The sampling and data analysis were conducted following the proposed schedule, which provided useful information on the system performance in controlling odor from lagoons. Parameters analyzed include pH, nitrate, nitrite, ammonium nitrogen, chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total Kjeldahl nitrogen, total solids (TS), total suspended solids (TSS), and volatile fatty acids (VFAs). Parallel to Minnesota, the field experiment in Texas was also carried out during the summer with aeration running on a poultry manure lagoon. Sample analysis in the Texas site is still underway and is expected to be completed in early next year. In MN, one PhD student was assigned to the project 100% time since inception and one PhD student significantly helped in the later part of the project. Another PhD student offered assistance on a need basis from time to time. Overall, the project provided training to three PhD students in Minnesota. Similarly, two postdocs were involved and trained in this project in Texas A&M University. The contribution of this project to teaching is thus obvious. Part of the results was incorporated into the educational materials for the Annual Air Quality Workshop in Minnesota with audiences from producers, agricultural professionals and consultants, state agencies, and local stakeholders. The results also were presented at outreach events such as the Annual University of Minnesota Open House in Waseca, MN which attracted attendants of over 2,500 from all walks of life, including Minnesota US Senators and state legislators. To disseminate the information from this project, a website is under construction for worldwide access. A patent for the novel design of the aerator module was filed with the University of Minnesota Office of Intellectual Properties but was not granted. The main reason was that due to lack of governmental regulations on odor emission from manure lagoons, the technology might face difficulties in commercialization (might not have a market). Therefore, it seems there exists an acute need to establish ordinances on odor emissions from open manure storages to facilitate the adoption of advanced techniques among animal producers to control odor. PARTICIPANTS: The personnel from University of Minnesota working on this project include: Dr. Jun Zhu, PI, who is responsible for overall project management including experimental protocols development, supervision of a technician and graduate students, maintenance of project progress and reporting; Curt Miller, technician, who is in charge of constructing lab and field experimental devices, installing the field-scale surface aeration unit, executing experiments, and helping with graduate students in all aspects of the project such as sampling and analysis, data collection, etc. Chunying Dong (PhD student) is heavily involved in experimental design and execution, collection and analysis of data, aerator design and tests at both lab and field scale. Xiao Wu and Liang Wang (PhD students) provided needed assistance in experimental setup, sample collection and analysis, data compilation, and field monitoring. The project thus provided training and education to three PhD students who received firsthand knowledge and experience related to US agriculture and the animal manure handling and treatment practice. The Texas A&M University personnel consisted of Dr. Saqib Mukhtar, co-PI, who is responsible for the project component that is carried out in Texas including management of the project, development of protocol, and supervision of postdocs. Two postdocs were hired sequentially for this project. Dr. Rahman Shafigur, postdoc, who worked on this project until May 2008 when he was hired by North Dakota State University as a tenure-track assistant professor and left. Another postdoc, Dr. Md Saidul Borhan, was then hired to replace Dr. Shafigur. They both are in charge of daily operation of the project including conducting experiment, collecting and analyzing data. The outside collaborators included a swine producer in MN and a poultry producer in TX who provided their manure lagoons for the field experiments of this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences for this project are mainly swine and poultry producers who use liquid manure storage facilities and who want to have a cost effective technique to control odor emission from these facilities. Dairy producers using lagoons are also part of audience for this technology. The information is also suitable for a broad group of audiences including governmental agencies, agricultural consultants, manure treatment technology industries, and the general public. To maximize the knowledge transfer, the information generated from this project has been disseminated among a larger audience via extension/education/outreach efforts such as presentations at symposiums and conferences, outreach events (such as the U of M Annual Open House), journal publications and extension bulletins, and trade magazines. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: As indicated early, the project was granted one more year at no cost to the agency to complete the proposed research. Other than that, there is no significant change to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The outcomes of this project have provided new knowledge in using aeration to mitigate a persistent air quality problem, i.e., odors emitted from open manure storage. The concept of aeration in wastewater treatment is not new; however, the wide use of this advanced technology in animal agriculture has never come across the river. The major hindrance rests with the fact that most commercial aeration systems are expensive relative to production costs: for a better effluent with low organic strength, the treatment costs tend to go higher. Conversely, the low-cost options tend to equate with less, and sometimes inadequate, treatment. The evidence from this project, however, speaks to the facts that expensive aeration equipment is not the only solution to the problem. By innovative engineering designs of an aeration system, it is possible to make aeration a very affordable technology for animal producers to use in their combat with the manure odor issue. The results of this project also remind us that although a considerable amount of research has been conducted in improving the design of various aerators to increase their efficiency, it seems rather unlikely that aerators with much greater aeration efficiency than those currently in use will be developed in the near future. Therefore, while continuing to develop a new generation of aerators and aeration systems, it may be worth looking into the possibility of employing low cost aerators to build high efficiency aeration systems. It has been proved herein that increases in aeration efficiency by over three folds can be achieved by simply using more than one aerator in the system and connecting them in a parallel fashion. The cost for purchasing six venturi air injectors is only around $1000 (plus a 1.5kW centrifugal water pump at $750), which is very affordable for any animal producer. As the project moves forward, the new knowledge obtained along the way has drawn attention nationwide, evidenced by one journal publication, two ASABE Annual Conference papers and one symposium paper, and one article in hog industry popular press. A second manuscript has been submitted to a prestigious journal for publication with several more in the works, clearly indicating the innovative nature of findings from this project. On top of that, numerous phone calls and emails were received across the nation from agricultural engineering companies and professionals inquiring about the technology and collaboration potentials. The collaborative producer certainly indicated a strong interest in putting one such system on his manure lagoon on a yearly basis and more producers will follow suit when the technology becomes mature and ready to implement. Nonetheless, measurable impacts of the project may not be seen in large scale without matching steps taken by regulatory agencies in establishing necessary limits for odor emissions from manure lagoons.
Publications
- Rahman, S, Mukhtar, S, Zhu, J. 2008. Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of a Surface Aeration System to Control Odor from an Aerobic Poultry Lagoon at Texas. ASABE paper: 084110.
- Zhu, J, Dong, C., Miller, C, Wang, L., Wu, X., Mukhtar, S. 2008. A Surface Aeration Unit for Odor Control from Liquid Swine Manure Storage Facilities. In Proc. Mitigating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations. May 19-21, Des Moines, IA.
- Zhu, J., 2007. Surface Aerator Makes Lagoon Odor Reduction Affordable for Producers. National Hog Farmer 52(12): 27-27.
- Zhu, J., Miller, C. Dong, C., Wu, X, Wang, L. and Mukhtar, S. 2007. Development of An Aerator Module to Control Odor from Liquid Manure Storage Facilities. ASABE paper: 074054.
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Progress 01/01/07 to 12/31/07
Outputs
OUTPUTS: This report covers the work completed between Jan 1 and Dec 31, 2007. The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a cost effective surface aeration system to control odor from open manure storage facilities. Thus, the research work in developing and evaluating the new aerator module is a fundamental step towards eventually achieving the project goal. During this period, extensive lab-scale experiments were carried out to search for the best design of the aerator module for the surface aeration system. Following the progress reported in the last report where we found that the parallel module worked better than the serial design in transferring oxygen into liquid, the work reported herein was actually not limited to the proposed development trials in the proposal and was expanded to find better designs of the venturi air injector module based on the similar principle. The insightful venture has led to the development of a novel aerator module composed of six venturi
air injectors that was a complex parallel module with multiple subunits to decrease the power consumption while still maintaining the comparable aeration efficiency. This particular aerator module has gone through extensive lab-scale tests with both water and manure, and with different pump sizes. In addition to the lab tests, limited field experiments were also conducted to test the performance of the aerator module (obviously, more field tests will follow during 2008). To do that, a field scale aeration apparatus was constructed using PVC pipes to form a distribution system. The distribution pipes were perforated with holes of different sizes along each pipe that was placed 12 inches below the lagoon liquid surface to bring the oxygenated liquid into the lagoon. The hole sizes were determined according to the piping system design methods built on the fluid dynamics theory, backed up by the super-computing capability provided by the University of Minnesota Super-Computing Center. The
goal of varying the hole size along the pipe is to achieve even liquid flow rate for each hole, thus even oxygen distribution in the covered surface area. Two to three graduate students are and will be continuing to work on this project (depending upon the working load) and the findings so far will be presented at the upcoming national conference on "Mitigating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations" that will be held May 19-21, 2008 in Des Moines, Iowa. The novel aerator module is under review by the University of Minnesota Office of Intellectual Properties for potential patent application. Because of this, the information has not been widely disseminated among animal producers and/or the general public.
PARTICIPANTS: Persons from University of Minnesota working on this project include: Jun Zhu, PI, who is responsible for overall project management including experimental protocols development, supervision of a technician and graduate students, maintenance of project progress and reporting; Curt Miller, technician, who is in charge of constructing lab and field experimental devices in working with graduate students and involved in running the experiments and collecting data; Chunying Dong, graduate student, who is responsible for experimental design and execution, data collection and analysis, aerator design using computational fluid dynamics, and lab and field experiments; Xiao Wu and Liang Wang, graduate students, both provide partial assistance in conducting the project when the workload is beyond the capability of Miller and Dong (especially in the installation of the field system). Therefore, this project provides training for three graduate students in Minnesota. Persons from
Texas A&M university working on this project include: Saqib Mukhtar, co-PI, who is responsible for the project component that is carried out in Texas including management of the project, development of protocol, and supervision of a postdoc; Rahman Shafigur, postdoc, who is in charge of daily operation of the project including conducting experiment, collecting and analyzing data. The outside collaborator is Will Anthony, who is a swine producer located in Nicollet County Minnesota and provides his lagoon for the field experiments of this project.
TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences for this project are mainly swine and poultry producers who use liquid manure storage facilities and who want to have a cost effective technique to control odor emission from these facilities. The information is also suitable for a broad group of audiences including governmental agencies, agricultural consultants, manure treatment technology industries, and the general public. Efforts are underway to develop an extension/outreach program to disseminate the knowledge generated from this project among all stakeholders via various communication vehicles such as presentations at the symposims and conferences, web deliveries, publications of referred jounal papers and extension bulletins, and organization of field days/tours on the site where the technology is installed.
PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: We have requested a one-year, no-cost extension of the project (ending June 30, 2009) through our Sponsored Project Administration at the University of Minnesota from the funding agency. Since the field evaluation of the developed technology is critical in its performance determination, the original ending date (June 30, 2008) does not allow us to conduct a full summer test. Without that information, it will be difficult to complete the project fully and successfully.
Impacts
Since the venturi aerators used in this study are purchased from the market, there is not much we can do to improve the venturi aerator design, per se. However, what we learnt from our research is that we can use these available products to design an aeration system of better efficiency and low cost. This is particularly important to swine producers from the financial perspective because most of the commercially available aerators are simply too expensive for them to use in controlling odor emitted from the open manure storage facilities. The research in this project proves to the animal producers who use liquid manure storages that through good engineering research and design, an affordable technique can be developed and built using inexpensive materials. In this project, we experimented different configurations of six venturi air injectors to come up with a design of the aerator module that could inject air into liquid at the minimum horsepower. We tested the product
using three centrifugal water pumps, i.e., 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0 hp and the results showed that although the 3.0 hp pump could achieve a higher oxygen transfer coefficient (12.33/hour), its oxygenation efficiency was actually lower than that of the 1.5 hp pump (5.48/kWh vs. 8.09/kWh). This finding is not only interesting but also of practical significance in that we can use small pumps to save electricity while achieving better aeration efficiency. This finding also adds new applied knowledge to the engineering practice. The collaborating farmer for this project was very happy to have the system running on his lagoon that reduced odor significantly from his operation. In early 2007, the farmer already asked for replacement of the aeration unit on his lagoon after the winter season because of the good results obtained from the experiments the year before. According to the odor analysis results, the odor detection threshold was reduced by 67% from the lagoon after the unit was running for
only about 10 days. Therefore, it can be foreseen that with the continuing research on this project, the impact of the outcomes will become more tangible and significant, potentially leading to a wide use of the developed technology for manure odor control in liquid storages (behavioral changes).
Publications
- Zhu, J., C. F. Miller, C. Dong, X. Wu, L. Wang, and S. Mukhtar. 2007. Aerator Module Development Using Venturi Air Injectors to Improve Aeration Efficiency. Applied Engineering in Agriculture 23(5): 661-667.
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Progress 01/01/06 to 01/01/07
Outputs
This report covers the work done between Jan 1 and December 31, 2006, including water and manure tests of parallel aerator modules and the piping design of the surface aeration unit. Detailed results below will focus on these completed topics. Work accomplished to date 1. Seriel aerator module test results The experiment with water for the series design of the aerator modules has produced three oxygen transfer coefficients, from high to low, of 5.11, 4.62, and 4.60/h for modules with one, two, and three air injectors. Thus, it can be concluded that the serial module with a single aerator can produce the highest oxygen transfer rate, which will be compared with the second design of the aerator module (parallel design) reported below. 2. Parallel aerator module test results Two aerator modules, one with two and one with three venturi air injectors, were built using the same size air injectors used in the series design. The modules were hooked up with the aeration tank
equipped with the same monitoring equipment employed in the series modules experiments. The system was driven by the 2 hp pump used in the previous tests. (1). Water test results Connecting two and three venturis in parallel were able to bring oxygen into water once aeration started, but at conspicuously different rates beginning two minutes after commencement. The aerator module with two air injectors gave a better oxygen transfer capability in view of the fact that at any sampling point two minutes after aeration started, it transferred more oxygen into the test liquid than the three-aerator module, with the differences in DO levels in water ranging from 0.15 to 0.77 mg/L over the experimental period, with the aeration efficiency and oxygenation capacity being 0.14 kgO2/kWh and 0.22 kgO2/h, respectively. (2). Manure test results with the parallel module of two air injectors Liquid manure, 600 gallons in volume, was placed in the same tank for the water tests and aerated till the
steady-state was reached. The oxygen transfer coefficient, kLa(20), was determined to be 7.23/h, based on which the aeration efficiency and oxygenation capacity of the system were found to be 0.11 kgO2/kWh and 0.16 kgO2/h. 3. Field scale aeration piping frame design The preliminary design of the field scale aeration frame was completed but modifications may still be needed to take account of field conditions that may vary from place to place (MN vs. TX). The design will be finalized only when all the other parameters that may affect the actual size and distribution of the piping frame are determined.
Impacts
The succuess of this project will lead to development of an affordable aeration technique to control liquid manure odor emitted from open storage facilities, thus leading to improvement in air quality and community harmony in rural areas, thereby sustaining the growth of small to medium-sized swine producers.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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