Abstract
With the extensive use of nitrogen-based fertilizer in agriculture, ammonia emissions, especially from cattle manure, are a serious environmental threat for soil and air. The European community committed to reduce the ammonia emissions by 30% by the year 2030 compared to 2005. After a moderate initial reduction, the last report showed no further improvements in the last four years, keeping the 30% reduction a very challenging target for the next decade. In this study, the mitigation effect of different types of tannin and tannin-based adsorbent on the ammonia emission from manure was investigated. Firstly, we conducted a template study monitoring the ammonia emissions registered by addition of the tannin-based powders to a 0.1% ammonia solution and then we repeated the experiments with ready-to-spread farm-made manure slurry. The results showed that all tannin-based powders induced sensible reduction of pH and ammonia emitted. Reductions higher than 75% and 95% were registered for ammonia solution and cattle slurry, respectively, when using flavonoid-based powders. These findings are very promising considering that tannins and their derivatives will be extensively available due to the increasing interest on their exploitation for the synthesis of new-generation “green” materials.
Highlights
90% of the ammonia (NH3) emissions in Europe are caused by different agricultural systems [1] from which about 41% in the animal sector are emitted by beef cattle [2]
The preliminary study on templated ammonia solution showed that all tannin-based adsorbents
Chestnut and mimosa industrial tannin extracts, tannin gel, and tannin-furanic foams were tested against a 0.1% template ammonia solution and 50% diluted cattle manure slurry
Summary
90% of the ammonia (NH3) emissions in Europe are caused by different agricultural systems [1] from which about 41% in the animal sector are emitted by beef cattle [2]. According to Wang et al [3], the estimated greenhouse gas (GHG) emission of beef cattle is around 50 kg NH3 per animal and year. NH3 global warming potential is estimated to be 265 times higher than CO2 because it is a precursor of the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer-depleting gas, nitrous oxide (N2O) [5,6]. Since the reductions registered through 2014, the last years have registered a moderate increase of ammonia concentration again [10]
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