Recovery of ammonia from anaerobically digested manure using gas-permeable membranes

Authors

  • Maria Cruz García-González Agricultural Technological Institute of Castilla and León
  • Matias B. Vanotti United States Department of Agriculture
  • Ariel A. Szogi United States Department of Agriculture

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/0103-9016-2015-0159

Abstract

Nitrogen (N) can be recovered from different types of wastewaters. Among these wastewaters, anaerobically digested swine manure (digestate) has the highest N content in ammonia form (NH3). It is desirable to reduce N in digestate effluents to safely incorporate them in arable soil in N vulnerable zones (NVZ) and to mitigate NH3 emissions during N land application. Additional benefit is to minimize inhibition of the anaerobic process by removing NH3 during the anaerobic digestion process. This work aimed to apply the gas-permeable membrane technology to evaluate ammonia (NH3) recovery from high-ammonia digested swine manure. Anaerobically digested swine manure with NH4+ content of 4,293 mg N L−1 was reduced by 91 % (to 381 mg N L−1) during the 32-day experiment. Although the results showed a total N recovery efficiency of 71 %, it is possible to increase this recovery efficiency to >; 90 % by adjusting the area of the membrane system to match the high free ammonia concentration (FA) in digested swine manure. Moreover, final digestate pH and alkalinity were kept around 8.1 and 8,923 mgCaCO3 L−1, which are convenient for the anaerobic process or incorporation in arable soil when the process is finished.

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Published

2016-10-01

Issue

Section

Agricultural Engeneering

How to Cite

Recovery of ammonia from anaerobically digested manure using gas-permeable membranes . (2016). Scientia Agricola, 73(5), 434-438. https://doi.org/10.1590/0103-9016-2015-0159