Location: Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research
2017 Annual Report
Accomplishments
1. Recovery of ammonia and production of high-grade phosphates from animal and municipal effluents. New processes and technologies to recover and re-use nutrients from wastes are desirable to close the nutrient cycle in modern human society and address future scarcity of non-renewable nutrients and fossil-based fertilizers. Therefore, conservation and recovery of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from wastes are important because of economic and environmental reasons. ARS researchers at Florence, South Carolina, have developed a new technology that allows separation and recovery of both ammonia and phosphorus from liquid effluents. A US patent application was filed in 2016 (USDA Docket 83.15). The new technology uses gas-permeable membranes at low pressure that are submerged in the manure liquid. The technology can recover 98% of the N. The process was further improved with little aeration that reduced costs by 70%. The low-rate aeration replaced alkali chemicals that were needed to raise the pH for optimum nitrogen recovery. An additional breakthrough came when the N process was combined with P recovery. Since ammonia and carbonates were taken out, the combined process produced phosphorus bio-minerals containing a very-high phosphate grade (46%), similar to commercial fertilizer favored by the fertilizer industry. The process provided 100% P recovery efficiencies. This technology has applications for anaerobic digester effluents in swine operations, dairies and municipalities. The potential value of recovered P and N from implementation of nutrient recovery technology in dairy farms is about 1.3 billion dollars. The invention provides a more competitive technology for nutrient recovery from the side-stream effluent of municipal plants that contains high P and N concentration. Users are entrepreneurs, livestock producers, municipalities, industrialists, extension practitioners and other scientists interested in manure nutrient recovery technologies.
Review Publications
Vanotti, M.B., Dube, P., Szogi, A.A., Garcia-Gonzalez, M.C. 2017. Recovery of ammonia and phosphate minerals from swine wastewater using gas-permeable membranes. Water Research. 112:137-146.
Ippolito, J.A., Berry, C.M., Strawn, D.G., Novak, J.M., Levine, J., Harley, A. 2017. Biochars reduce mine land soil bioavailable metals. Journal of Environmental Quality. 46:411-419.
Randolph, P., Bansode, R., Hassan, O., Rehrah, D., Ravella, R., Reddy, M., Watts, D.W., Novak, J.M., Ahmedna, M. 2017. Effects of biochars produced from solid organic municipal waste on soil quality parameters. Journal of Environmental Management. 192:271-280.
Mehmood, K., Chavez Garcia, E., Schirrmann, M., Ladd, B., Kammann, C., Wrage-Monnig, N., Siebe, C., Estavillo, J.M., Fuertes-Mendizabal, T., Cayuela, M., Sigua, G.C., Spokas, K.A., Cowie, A.L., Novak, J.M., Ippolito, J.A., Borchard, N. 2017. Biochar research activities and their relation to development and environmental quality: A meta-analysis. Agronomy for Sustainable Development. doi:10.1007/s13593-017-0430-1.
Kammann, C., Ippolito, J., Hagemann, N., Borchard, N., Cayuela, M., Estavillo, J., Fuertes-Mendizabal, T., Jeffery, S., Kern, J., Novak, J.M., Rasse, D., Saarnio, S., Schmidt, H., Spokas, K.A., Wrage-Monnig, N. 2017. Biochar as a tool to reduce the agricultural greenhouse-gas burden-knowns, unknowns, and future research needs. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management. 25(02):114-139.
Laird, D.A., Novak, J.M., Collins, H.P., Ippolito, J.A., Karlen, D.L., Lentz, R.D., Sistani, K.R., Spokas, K.A., Van Pelt, R.S. 2016. Multi-year and multi-location soil quality and crop biomass yield responses to hardwood fast pyrolysis biochar. Geoderma. 289:46-53.
Camps-Arbestain, M., Shen, Q., Wang, T., Van Zwieten, L., Novak, J.M. 2017. Available nutrients in biochar. CSIRO Australia Griffith NSW. 109-125.
Sigua, G.C., Stone, K.C., Bauer, P.J., Szogi, A.A. 2016. Nitrate leaching, water-use efficiency and yield of corn with different irrigation and nitrogen management systems in coastal plains, USA. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment. 203:159-170. https://doi.org/10.2495/EID160151.
Connan, R., Dabert, P., Le Roux, S., Chapleur, O., Bridoux, G., Vanotti, M.B., Beline, F., Magri, A. 2017. Characterization of a combined batch-continuous procedure for the culture of anammox biomass. Ecological Engineering. 106:231-241.
Vanotti, M.B., Dube, P.J., Szogi, A.A. 2017. Recovery of ammonia and production of high-grade phosphates from side-stream digester effluents using gas-permeable membranes. Frontiers in Wastewater Treatment and Modeling. Book Series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering. 4:13-17. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-58421-8_2.
Ducey, T.F., Collins, J.C., Ro, K.S., Woodbury, B.L., Griffin, D. 2017. Hydrothermal carbonization of livestock mortality for the reduction of pathogens and microbially-derived DNA. Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering. 11(3):9-16.
Miller, J.O., Ducey, T.F., Brigman Jr, P.W., Ogg, C.O., Hunt, P.G. 2017. Greenhouse gas emissions and denitrification within depressional wetlands of the southeastern US coastal plain in an agricultural landscape. Wetlands. 37(1):33-43.
Ro, K.S., Moore Jr, P.A., Szogi, A.A., Millner, P.D. 2017. Ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions from broiler houses with downtime windrowed litter. Journal of Environmental Quality. 46:498-504.
Han, L., Sun, H., Ro, K.S., Sun, K., Libra, J., Xing, B. 2017. Removal of antimony (III) and cadmium (II) from aqueous solution using animal manure-derived hydrochars and pyrochars. Bioresource Technology. 234:77-85.
Mandal, S., Sarkar, B., Bolan, N., Novak, J.M., Ok, Y., Van Zwienten, L., Bhupinder, P., Kirkham, M., Choppala, G., Spokas, K.A., Naidu, R. 2016. Designing advanced biochar products for maximizing greenhouse gas mitigation potential. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science Technology. 46(17):1367-1401.
Berihu, T., Girmay, G., Sebhatleab, M., Berhane, E., Zenebe, A., Sigua, G.C. 2016. Soil carbon and nitrogen losses following deforestation in Ethiopia. Agronomy for Sustainable Development. doi:10.1007/s13593-016-0408-4.
Garcia-Gonzales, M.C., Vanotti, M.B., Szogi, A.A. 2016. Recovery of ammonia from anaerobically digested manure using gas-permeable membranes. Scientia Agricola. 73(5):434-438.
Szogi, A.A., Vanotti, M.B. 2016. Decline of phosphorus, copper, and zinc in anaerobic swine lagoon columns receiving pretreated influent. Scientia Agricola. 73(5):417-423.
