ARS | Publication request: AMMONIA REMOVAL AND NITROUS OXIDE PRODUCTION IN GAS-PHASE COMPOST BIOFILTERS

Submitted to: International Symposium on Animal Waste Management
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: January 1, 2009
Publication Date: March 11, 2009
Citation: Del Nero Maia, G., Day, G., Gates, R., Taraba, J., Sales, T., Lovanh, N.C. 2009. AMMONIA REMOVAL AND NITROUS OXIDE PRODUCTION IN GAS-PHASE COMPOST BIOFILTERS. International Symposium on Animal Waste Management.

Technical Abstract: Biofiltration technology is widely utilized for treating ammonia gas (NH3), with one of its potential detrimental by-products being nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas approximately 300 times more reactive to infrared than CO2. The present work intends to provide the relation between NH3 removal during biofiltration and N2O generation as a product of incomplete denitrification. Four laboratory scale tubular biofilters in up flow mode (20 s residence time) were studied: 3 replicates subjected to 0.78 g m-2 h-1 of NH3 and a statistical control not subjected to NH3. In the present work preliminary tests showed a strong negative correlation between NH3 removal and N2O production, and a small positive correlation between methane (CH4) generation and N2O. Also, by the visual check of biofilter media, the higher the level of moisture content the higher the nitrous oxide production. The statistical control did not generate N2O under similar conditions as replicates.