A simple low cost gravel facility was used as a biofilter to treat swine liquid manure as an on farm percolation-infiltration system that removed both carbon and nitrogen. Tests done in laboratory showed using aerated columns showed that partially stabilized stored manure can be treated to reduce the BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) and lower the nitrogen content. After the initial biofilm (bacteria attached to the gravel particles) developed in the gravel bed, for an initial ammonium-N concentration of 1 g per liter, the nitrification process could reach a rate of 86 g per square meter of the gravel cross section per day. This rate was high enough to convert all the ammonium to nitrate. The nitrification process could not convert all the ammonium-N to nitrate when the initial ammonium content was equal to 3.2g\/L even with a high nitrification rate of 258 g\/m2 per day; the leachate had still a residual ammonium-L content of 0.52 g\/L. Tests were done with the effluent and the results showed that when a carbon source was added to it, denitrification occurred and its rate was proportional to the amount of carbon added. The on-farm pilot scale gravel bed facility (50 m2 gravel surface area and 1.4 m depth) could nitrify completely 52 g of nitrogen per m2 and per day with a through-put of 60 L per m2 per day. The results showed that at a higher manure load of 100 L per m2 per day, the nitrification activity increased to 72 g per m2 per day however not all the ammonium-N was converted to nitrate.<\/p>\n
This system seems simple as a gravel bed is used for support to the bacteria that treat the manure. However, aeration of the bed is necessary and subsequent control is necessary in order to assure the denitrification of the nitrogen that is under the form of nitrate. On a commercial scale that may represent controls and conditions that have to be monitored. The results presented are for a 3 months period and no information is presented on the ambient conditions necessary for optimal bacteria activity. As the activity slows and stops at low temperature, such systems could be ineffective during a long period in cold winter conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A simple low cost gravel facility was used as a biofilter to treat swine liquid manure as an on farm percolation-infiltration system that removed both carbon and nitrogen. Tests done in laboratory showed using aerated columns showed that partially stabilized stored manure can be treated to reduce the BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) and lower the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8882,6618,13816,1930,493,1402,1972,3965,6784,190,19644,809,4663,538,20007,308,169,480,362,496,813,187,7545,1205,4951,15459,16262,19940,210,35,20911,99,1579,52,3034],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-al","tag-articles","tag-ass","tag-biofilm","tag-biofilter","tag-carbon","tag-condition","tag-content","tag-cos","tag-cost","tag-dd","tag-denitrification","tag-don","tag-filtration","tag-gh","tag-liquid-manure","tag-manure","tag-manure-treatment","tag-n","tag-nitrate","tag-nitrification","tag-nitrogen","tag-optimal","tag-packed-reactor","tag-particle","tag-ped","tag-pl","tag-porc","tag-slurry","tag-swine","tag-t","tag-temperature","tag-test","tag-treatment","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}