Effects of Turning Frequency on Ammonia Emission during the Composting of Chicken Manure and Soybean Straw.

Qianqian Ma,Yanli Li,Zhaojun Li,Dengmiao Cheng,Jianming Xue

doi:10.3390/molecules27020472

Abstract

Here, we investigated the impact of different turning frequency (TF) on dynamic changes of N fractions, NH3 emission and bacterial/archaeal community during chicken manure composting. Compared to higher TF (i.e., turning every 1 or 3 days in CMS1 or CMS3 treatments, respectively), lower TF (i.e., turning every 5 or 7 days in CMS5 or CMS7 treatments, respectively) decreased NH3 emission by 11.42–18.95%. Compared with CMS1, CMS3 and CMS7 treatments, the total nitrogen loss of CMS5 decreased by 38.03%, 17.06% and 24.76%, respectively. Ammonia oxidizing bacterial/archaeal (AOB/AOA) communities analysis revealed that the relative abundance of Nitrosospira and Nitrososphaera was higher in lower TF treatment during the thermophilic and cooling stages, which could contribute to the reduction of NH3 emission. Thus, different TF had a great influence on NH3 emission and microbial community during composting. It is practically feasible to increase the abundance of AOB/AOA through adjusting TF and reduce NH3 emission the loss of nitrogen during chicken manure composting.

Highlights

Effective and ecofriendly approach to deal with livestock and poultry waste, composting is a dynamic biological process driven by microbial populations, selfheating and the biodegradative process of waste [1,2,3,4]
The whole composting process could be divided into four phases, namely, mesophilic phase (21–40 ◦ C, days 0–1), thermophilic phase (35–65 ◦ C, days 2–17), cooling phase (65–40 ◦ C, days 18–35) and maturation phase (40–25 ◦ C, days 36–43) according to the temperature variation trend of composting
The pile temperature at the CMS7 treatment was kept above 60 ◦ C for a total of 11 days, which was three days less than the other three treatments

Summary

Introduction

Effective and ecofriendly approach to deal with livestock and poultry waste, composting is a dynamic biological process driven by microbial populations, selfheating and the biodegradative process of waste [1,2,3,4]. Composting manure has been shown to have a lot of agronomic benefits, such as a reduction in waste material mass and water content, pathogen suppression, weed seeds killing, and reduction of phytotoxic substances and unpleasant odors, eventually turning the manure into a stable nutrient source of organic fertilizer needed for crop production [5,6]. Studies have shown that about 16–74% of the total nitrogen (TN) at the initial stage is lost and approximately 46.8–77.4% of the TN is unavoidably lost with the release of NH3 during composting [9,10]. The NH3 emissions can result of reducing the quality of compost products and cause secondary environmental pollution [11,12,13]. It is necessary to lower the emission of NH3 during composting in order to minimize environmental impacts

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion