Abstract
Animal housing can emit substantial amounts of odorous compounds. Among the air cleaning technologies, biotrickling filters can be interesting for animal housing since they are easier to manage and are smaller in size than traditional biofilters. It is also known that by reducing odour emissions, producers can improve the relationship with their neighbours. In fact, legislation in some countries forces producers to respect minimum distances between their barns and the neighbours. The overall objective of this study is to measure reductions in odour emissions obtained with a laboratory scale biotrickling filter (BTF) and to evaluate the potential gain in minimum distances for swine buildings. Three identical bench-scale chambers were equipped with three BTFs. Each chamber housed four grower-finisher pigs up to 80 kg. The experimental design included the following combinations of parameters: three empty bed residence time and two types of filtration media. Measurements included odour concentrations both with the dynamic olfatometry method and the assessor technique. The calculation of minimum distances was done using the equation developed by the provincial government of Quebec, in Canada. Results suggest that the BTFs are able to reduce odour emissions from -27% up to 92%. The media type and the empty bed residence time seem to have no effect on the efficiency of the BTFs. The results from the trials were then supposed to be used to produce simulations for the calculation of minimum distances. Given the efficiencies obtained during this project, it is difficult to establish an average performance of the BTFs that could be used to establish the subfactor F3.
Published Version
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