Performing Department
Biological Systems Engineering
Non Technical Summary
The poultry industry currently uses ventilation and acid based litter amendments to manage ammonia concentration in broiler houses. The energy cost for ventilatiing broiler houses depends on the weather and usually increases as the ambient temperature decreases. The acid based litter amendments are short term and are only useful until their capacity to react are exhausted. The acid based salts have limitation on how much can be applied. The overall goal of using litter amendment should provide the ptoducer a net income benefit via low energy costs, low in-house ammonia concentration, and lower bird mortality. Typically, the acid salts are applied at the beginning of a flock and in the brooding areas. Reducing ammonia emissions from poultry production is imperative to reducing the national ammonia emissions inventory. Currently, inorganic acid based litter amendment such as alum, Poultry GuardTM, Klasp, and Poultry litter Treatment (PLT) are used in poultry houses to mitigate ammonia emissions. While reductions between 36 and 99 percent of ammonia concentrations have been reported and according to the U.S. EPA poultry production accounts for 27 percent of total ammonia produced by the animal feeding operations. The fact that poultry production leads in ammonia emissions despite successful mitigation technologies in the market, suggests need for an effective outreach/education program for technology implementation and/or additional technologies. Maybe there is a need for more BMPs; none implementation of existing BMPs; and/or lack of knowledge/information about impact of NH3 emissions from animal feeding operations on the environment. This study proposes a novel biodegradable litter amendment to be used as a BMP instead of the inorganic acid based litter amendment. The litter amendment will be made from agricultural residues and will not only reduce ammonia emissions from broiler houses but because of its organic nature, will enhance the value of litter as organic fertilizer, improve the composting characteristics of the litter if desired as fertilizer.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Develop preliminary models of each animal industry that describe its cumulative ecological risk, energy flows or ecological footprint as a dynamic, nonlinear function of the stocks, flows and transformations of matter and energy comprising CAFO systems.
Continue the development and performance evaluation of process-level strategies and tactics to reduce environmental pollution at the process level from confined animal feeding operations. This work will include 1) management tools, strategies and systems for land application of animal manures and effluents that optimize efficient, environmentally friendly utilization of nutrients and are compatible with sustained land and water quality
2) physical, chemical and biological treatment processes in engineered and natural systems for management of manures and other wastes
3) methodology, technology, and management practices to reduce odors, gases, airborne microflora, particulate matter, and other airborne emissions from animal production systems
and 4) feeding systems for their potential to alter the excretion of environmentally-sensitive nutrients by livestock.
Project Methods
Agricultural residues including corn cobs, corn stover, and soybean straw will be used in this study. The materials will be characterized for physical and chemical properties. The residues will be subjected to a steam explosion process to modify their structure and transform them into the desired novel materials. The transformation will be achieved by loading the raw materials into a steam explosion unit, where steam is introduced into the reaction chamber to raise the temperature of the reactants to the prescribed values for fixed residence times for a given severity factor. By changing the severity factor of the reactions, the properties of the steam exploded material can be changed with respect to acidity, surface area, and particle size. Advanced materials will be developed by augmenting the agricultural residues by acidic salts of iron or aluminum. The produced materials will be analyzed for acidity and ammonia absorption capacity The ability of the materials produced to absorb ammonia will be used as selection criteria for application in broiler production. Evaluation of results obtained from a just concluded pilot scale studies using steam exploded corn cobs will be conducted. The results will be evaluated to determine the economics of use compared to other inorganic litter amendments on the market (meta analysis). The pilot scale study was conducted at the Virginia Tech Turkey research farm in six adjacent rooms each measuring 3.8m long by 3.6m wide by 3 m high will be used. Each room is individually ventilated using a 0.46m diameter exhaust fan. The birds were fed a normal basal diet of corn and soybean meal from three tube feeders. A 3-phase feeding program based on age for starters (0 to 18 days), growers (18 to 33 days) and finisher (33 to 42 days) with and ad libitum supply of water was used. Birds were weighed at every feed change and end of grow cycle. Foot pad scores on the birds feet were conducted at the end of each grow out as well. Comparison of ammonia from rooms treated with the novel material and the control (no litter amendment), weight gain, and foot pad scores will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the novel materials. A meta analysis of information in literature that have tested inorganic salts such as alum, sodium bisulfate will be conducted and combined with the results from our study. The results will be presented at professional meetings and to the poultry industry.