Ammonia Capture from CAFOs with Positive Economics for the Agriculture Industry

Ammonia emissions from poultry enclosures and other livestock operations have come underincreased societal and regulatory scrutiny as a suspected source of nitrogen pollution in surfacewaters and as a source of odors allergies and health issues in neighboring communities.Additionally high ammonia levels inside poultry enclosures can negatively impact the health andproductivity of the birds.The proposed system is an innovative ammonia abatement technology designed to bring economicbenefits to poultry growers and decrease emissions by harvesting ammonia from poultry houses toproduce a valuable commercial byproduct while also improving bird performance through betterindoor air quality. The two objectives of this Phase I project are to 1) demonstrate the technicalefficacy of the system to harvest ammonia through the adsorption desorption and recovery ofammonia using solid sorbents and 2) validate the target system size resulting economics andemissions reductions through computational modelling.To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed sorbent-based ammonia harvesting system a simulatedpoultry house flue gas will be used to test and evaluate the system's performance at the componentlevel and as an integrated system. The complete system will then be modeled in a poultrysimulation software to prove the feasibility of implementation and demonstrate ammoniaharvesting efficacy.If successful the System could be transformational for the poultry industry because the largesthurdle to adopting ammonia capture technology "high cost" would be eliminated leading towidespread industry adoption of ammonia removal technology positive environmentalstewardship and an improved public perception of poultry producers.