Real-time on-site monitoring of soil ammonia emissions using membrane permeation-based sensing probe

Abstract

An ability to real-time, continuously monitor soil ammonia emission profiles under diverse meteorological conditions with high temporal resolution in a simple and maintenance-free fashion can provide the urgently needed scientific insights to mitigate ammonia emission to the atmosphere and improve agricultural fertilization practice. Here, we report an open-chamber deployment unit embedded a gas-permeable membrane-based conductometric sensing probe (OC-GPMCP) capable of on-site continuously monitoring soil ammonia emission flux (JNH3) –time (t) profiles without the need for ongoing calibration. The developed OC-GPMCPs were deployed to a sugarcane field and a cattle farm under different fertilization/meteorological conditions to exemplify their real-world applicability for monitoring soil ammonia emission from agricultural land and livestock farm, respectively. The obtained JNH3 – t profiles from the sugarcane field unveil that the ammonia emission rate is largely determined by fertilization methods and meteorological conditions. While the JNH3 – t profiles from the cattle farm can be decisively correlated to various meteorological conditions. The reported OC-GPMCP is cheap to fabricate, easy to deploy, and maintenance-free to operate. These advantageous features make OC-GPMCP an effective analytical tool for large-scale soil ammonia emission assessment under diverse meteorological conditions, providing critically important scientific insights to mitigate ammonia emission into the atmosphere and improve agricultural fertilization practice.