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The Product | |
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Solids Digestion | |
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Odor Control |
Odor Control
There are over 200 different gases that have been identified being released from manure storage systems. The most well known are hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, butyl mercaptan, carbon monoxide and methane. Based on the wide variety of compounds, and the wide variety of fluctuations in the concentrations of these compounds, the task of quantifying odor has become a very difficult issue.
Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide concentrations have both been measured and vigorously tested in university labs against air samples taken from animal confinement operations in the field. Both compounds were shown to be negatively correlated to odor intensities quantified by "sniffer panels." What this means is a gas sample is taken from the field back to the lab and measured for hydrogen sulfide, for example.
At the lab the sample is exposed to a panel of people to determine the intensity of the odor to the human nose. In general, two things happened. First, a sample would have high sulfide concentrations, but the panel would assign a low odor threshold value to the sample. In other words, there was a lot of hydrogen sulfide present, but the panel said it didn’t smell bad. Also, there were times when there were low levels of sulfide present, but the panel assigned the sample a very high odor threshold value. Similar findings with ammonia are also documented. However, there has been a group of compounds that have been positively correlated to odor intensity. This group of compounds is called volatile fatty acids.
The principle goal of anaerobic digestion is to break down manure into methane gas. In most cases, however, the bi-products of initial anaerobic digestion never reach the final stage. Many organic compounds stall before they are broken down into methane due to toxic concentrations of manure or inadequate bacterial populations. We need to go back to the concept of the bacterial consortium to understand this. Imagine a 400 meter relay being run and at each 100 meter mark, the baton is passed to a new runner until the race is completed. In a good number of anaerobic systems today, the runner (proteins, fats, cellulose, etc) never make it past the 200-meter mark. Therefore, the goal of reaching it to the 400-meter mark (i.e.-odorless-methane release) is never realized. These half-digested compounds are then released to the air as volatile fatty acids or VFA’s.
Pit Remedy has been shown to reduce VFA’s by over 90% within slurry samples demonstrating the superior digestion and control of odors our product provides.