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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Florence, South Carolina » Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #377305
Research Project: Improvement of Soil Management Practices and Manure Treatment/Handling Systems of the Southern Coastal Plain

Location: Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research

Title: On-site membrane-based nitrogen recovery from livestock wastewaters

Author
item MOLINUEVO-SALCES, BEATRIZ - Institute Of Castilla - Spain
item RIANO, BERTA - Institute Of Castilla - Spain
item HERNANDEZ, D - Institute Of Castilla - Spain
item Vanotti, Matias
item GARCIA-GONZALEZ, MARIA - Institute Of Castilla - Spain

Submitted to: Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/4/2020
Publication Date: 9/1/2020
Citation: Molinuevo-Salces, B., Riano, B., Hernandez, D., Vanotti, M.B., Garcia-Gonzalez, M.C. 2020. On-site membrane-based nitrogen recovery from livestock wastewaters. Meeting Proceedings.

Interpretive Summary: The objective of this study was to compare the efficiency of a pilot plant recovering nitrogen (N) using gas-permeable membrane (GPM) technology from two different livestock waste waters: fresh swine manure and anaerobic digestate. The digestate was produced by Anaerobic Digestion (AD) of a mixture of swine manure and a variety of agricultural byproducts. The same pilot plant was tested first at the swine farm and then moved and tested at the biogas plant. The ammonia N was recovered as liquid fertilizer solutions that were concentrated up to 32,000 mg per liter, that is about 11 times compared to the initial effluent. This allows economical transportation of ammonia from areas of concentrated livestock production to far away areas that need the N to grow crops.

Technical Abstract: Gas Permeable Membrane Technology (GPMT) was successfully applied to recover nitrogen from two types of liveststock wastewaters using on-site recovery plants at pilot-scale. Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN) recovery rates were 26.9 and 23.7 g TAN per square meter of membrane area per day, for raw manure and digestate, respectively. The TAN was recovered as ammonia sulphate solutions that were concentrated up to 32.1 and 18.4 grams (g) TAN per liter for raw manure and digestate, respectively. This means that TAN was concentrated up to 11 and 7 times, compared to the initial effluent.