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    Methane Emission Characteristics of Naturally Ventilated Cattle Buildings
    (Basel : MDPI AG, 2020) Hempel, Sabrina; Willink, Diliara; Janke, David; Ammon, Christian; Amon, Barbara; Amon, Thomas
    The mandate to limit global temperature rise calls for a reliable quantification of gaseous pollutant emissions as a basis for effective mitigation. Methane emissions from ruminant fermentation are of particular relevance in the context of greenhouse gas mitigation. The emission dynamics are so far insufficiently understood. We analyzed hourly methane emission data collected during contrasting seasons from two naturally ventilated dairy cattle buildings with concrete floor and performed a second order polynomial regression. We found a parabolic temperature dependence of the methane emissions irrespective of the measurement site and setup. The position of the parabola vertex varied when considering different hours of the day. The circadian rhythm of methane emissions was represented by the pattern of the fitted values of the constant term of the polynomial and could be well explained by feeding management and air flow conditions. We found barn specific emission minima at ambient temperatures around 10 °C to 15 °C. As this identified temperature optimum coincides with the welfare temperature of dairy cows, we concluded that temperature regulation of dairy cow buildings with concrete floor should be considered and further investigated as an emission mitigation measure. Our results further indicated that empirical modeling of methane emissions from the considered type of buildings with a second order polynomial for the independent variable air temperature can increase the accuracy of predicted long-term emission values for regions with pronounced seasonal temperature fluctuations
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    Methane emissions from the storage of liquid dairy manure: Influences of season, temperature and storage duration
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2021) Cárdenas, Aura; Ammon, Christian; Schumacher, Britt; Stinner, Walter; Herrmann, Christiane; Schneider, Marcel; Weinrich, Sören; Fischer, Peter; Amon, Thomas; Amon, Barbara
    Methane emissions from livestock manure are primary contributors to GHG emissions from agriculture and options for their mitigation must be found. This paper presents the results of a study on methane emissions from stored liquid dairy cow manure during summer and winter storage periods. Manure from the summer and winter season was stored under controlled conditions in barrels at ambient temperature to simulate manure storage conditions. Methane emissions from the manure samples from the winter season were measured in two time periods: 0 to 69 and 0 to 139 days. For the summer storage period, the experiments covered four time periods: from 0 to 70, 0 to 138, 0 to 209, and 0 to 279 continuous days, with probing every 10 weeks. Additionally, at the end of all storage experiments, samples were placed into eudiometer batch digesters, and their methane emissions were measured at 20 °C for another 60 days to investigate the potential effect of the aging of the liquid manure on its methane emissions. The experiment showed that the methane emissions from manure stored in summer were considerably higher than those from manure stored in winter. CH4 production started after approximately one month, reaching values of 0.061 kg CH4 kg−1 Volatile Solid (VS) and achieving high total emissions of 0.148 kg CH4 kg−1 VS (40 weeks). In winter, the highest emissions level was 0.0011 kg CH4 kg−1 VS (20 weeks). The outcomes of these experimental measurements can be used to suggest strategies for mitigating methane emissions from manure storage.
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    Particulate matter emissions during field application of poultry manure - The influence of moisture content and treatment
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier Science, 2021) Kabelitz, Tina; Biniasch, Oliver; Ammon, Christian; Nübel, Ulrich; Thiel, Nadine; Janke, David; Swaminathan, Senthilathiban; Funk, Roger; Münch, Steffen; Rösler, Uwe; Siller, Paul; Amon, Barbara; Aarnink, André J. A.; Amon, Thomas
    Along with industry and transportation, agriculture is one of the main sources of primary particulate matter (PM) emissions worldwide. Bioaerosol formation and PM release during livestock manure field application and the associated threats to environmental and human health are rarely investigated. In the temperate climate zone, field fertilization with manure seasonally contributes to local PM air pollution regularly twice per year (spring and autumn). Measurements in a wind tunnel, in the field and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to analyze PM aerosolization during poultry manure application and the influence of manure moisture content and treatment. A positive correlation between manure dry matter content (DM) and PM release was observed. Therefore, treatments strongly increasing the DM of poultry manure should be avoided. However, high manure DM led to reduced microbial abundance and, therefore, to a lower risk of environmental pathogen dispersion. Considering the findings of PM and microbial measurements, the optimal poultry manure DM range for field fertilization was identified as 50–70%. Maximum PM10 concentrations of approx. 10 mg per m3 of air were measured during the spreading of dried manure (DM 80%), a concentration that is classified as strongly harmful. The modeling of PM aerosolization processes indicated a low health risk beyond a distance of 400 m from the manure application source. The detailed knowledge about PM aerosolization during manure field application was improved with this study, enabling manure management optimization for lower PM aerosolization and pathogenic release into the environment.