Date of Award:

5-2010

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Committee Chair(s)

Robert S. Brown

Committee

Robert S. Brown

Committee

Stephen Bialkowski

Committee

Randal S. Martin

Committee

Alvan Hengge

Abstract

The National Air Emission Monitoring Study (NAEMS) project was funded by the Agricultural Air Research Council (AARC) to evaluate agricultural emissions nationwide. Utah State University (USU) is conducting a parallel study on agricultural emissions at a Cache Valley poultry facility. As part of this parallel study, samples of animal feed, eggs and animal waste were collected weekly from three manure barns (designated: manure barn, barn 4 - manure belt and barn 5 - high rise) from May 2008 to November 2009.

These samples were analyzed to determine ammonia content, total Kjeldahl nitrogen content and ammonia emission. The yearly average calculated NH3 values for manure barn, barn 4 and barn 5 were determined in units of mg NH3/gmanure as: 1.1 ± 0.2, 0.6 ± 0.1 and 0.8 ± 0.1, respectively. The yearly average calculated TKN values in units of % N were determined as: 2.0% ± 0.3, 1.6% ± 0.3 and 1.9% ± 0.3 for manure barn, barn 4 and barn 5, respectively. The yearly average of NH3 emission in units of mg NH3/bird-day was determined to be 440 ± 180 mg NH3/bird-day for barn 4, and 540 ± 190 mg NH3/bird-day for barn 5.

The ammonia and organic amines emissions in ambient air at a Cache valley confined poultry facility were measured by using a sulfuric acid trapping solution in an impinger train followed ion chromatography (IC) detection. The yearly average concentrations of ammonia in ambient air at the barns were calculated at 11.9 ± 2.9 ppm at the manure belt barn and 12.7 ± 3.1 ppm at the high rise barn. No organic amines were detected in the collected ambient air samples by the ion chromatography method.

Because there were no amines detected by the IC method, limits of detection of organic amines in air were studied. The results showed that the organic amines in the manure must occur at a minimum concentration of 1 ppm in order to have sufficient vapor pressure so that enough is transported to the impingers for trapping and subsequently be detected by the IC.

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