The Need

Ammonia emissions pose a threat to environmental quality, public health, and agricultural operations. Ammonia gas (NH₃) is a waste product from animal production and manure composting facilities, and contributes to environmental acidification and increase particulate concentrations in the air. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that animal agriculture accounts for 80.9% of total man-made ammonia emissions resulting in significant amounts of nitrogen loss. In animal agriculture, the greatest ammonia losses are associated with land application of manure (35%-45%) and animal housing facilities (30%-35%). Innovative technologies for the abatement and recovery of NH₃ emissions from agricultural productions are urgently needed to protect the environment and create an alternative fertilizer for crop farming.

The Technology

The Ohio State University researchers, led by Dr. Lingying Zhao, developed a spray acid wet scrubber technology that can efficiently remove and recover ammonia emissions from large-scale commercial poultry facilities. The modular scrubber design developed by Dr. Zhao and her team has resulted in a scrubber with increased efficiency and is cost effective to build and operate. Some attributes of the wet scrubber include:

• Very low air resistance surpasses packed-bed wet scrubber designs
• 73% reduction of ammonia emissions from a commercial poultry farm.
• Generates up to 36% ammonium sulfate solution – commercial grade liquid nitrogen fertilizer
• Recovers 100-400 ppmv concentrations of NH₃

Commercial Applications

• Agriculture
• Environmental technology

Benefits/ Advantages

• Reasonably high ammonia removal efficiency
• Very small air resistance
• Able to be used in poultry facilities with many large axial fans