Mitigation of Ammonia Emissions from Cattle Manure Slurry by Tannins and Tannin-Based Polymers

• Published in: Biomolecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 10; no. 4; p. 581
• Main Authors: Sepperer, Thomas, Tondi, Gianluca, Petutschnigg, Alexander, Young, Timothy M, Steiner, Konrad
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 10.04.2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Adsorbents; Adsorption; agriculture; Ammonia; Ammonia - analysis; Animals; Beef cattle; Cattle; Experiments; Flavonoids; greenhouse gas; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Kinetics; liquid manure; Logistic Models; Manure - analysis; Manures; natural polyphenol; NH3; Polyphenols; Slurries; Solutions; Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; Spectrum analysis; tannin-furanic foam; Tannins - chemistry; Wood preservatives; United States > US; Germany; agriculture; liquid manure; emission reduction; natural polyphenol; NH3; tannin-furanic foam; greenhouse gas
• ISSN: 2218-273X; 2218-273X
• DOI: 10.3390/biom10040581

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.