Browsing by Subject "Ammonia emission"

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    Air pollution by particulate matter and ammonia at suburban and rural sites in the North China Plain
    (2011) Kopsch, Jenny; Fangmeier, Andreas
    The thesis presented here was conducted at the Institute of Landscape and Plant Ecology at the University of Hohenheim within the scope of the first Sino-German International Research Training Group (IRTG) ?Modeling Material Flows and Production Systems for Sustainable Resource Use in Intensified Crop Production in the North China Plain?. The project is jointly performed by the University of Hohenheim and the China Agricultural University (CAU) Beijing and financed by the German Research Foundation and the Chinese Ministry of Education. The present study was performed in the framework of subproject 1.3 of the IRTG which had the major aim to study air pollution and atmospheric nitrogen deposition in the North China Plain (NCP). For that purpose data on concentrations of atmospheric pollutants were required in order to assess the level of exposure to pollution of both population and environment in the NCP. This study represents the initial work in the NCP in 2005 and 2006 in order to monitor air pollution and dry nitrogen deposition and its effects. Within this work experiments were conducted to monitor concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, TSP, NOx and NH3 in the NCP. Ammonia monitoring and biomonitoring were synchronised in order to study the potential effects of nitrogen deposition on Molinia caerulea. Since there was no air monitoring network existing in the NCP at the onset of this study, one major part of the work consisted of setting up and testing of European measuring devices under the special conditions in the NCP. The measurements have been therefore the starting point of field observations in the NCP and especially the PM monitoring operated at the agricultural study site Dongbeiwang (DBW) was a key element of the field campaign in order to study pollutant concentrations in the NCP but also the influences of the nearby megacity Beijing. Sampling with the High Volume Sampler Digitel DHA 80 proved to be suitable for the conditions in the NCP. The levels of daily PM10 measured in this study exceeded European (50 µg m-3) and Chinese (150 µg m-3) thresholds by far. Also the EU standard for the number of tolerated daily exceedances (35 times per year) was not met in the Beijing area. Results of PM10 measurements at DBW showed 126 exceedances of the daily mean European threshold in only 128 days in 2005 and 43 exceedances in 44 days in 2006. The maximum daily mean of 412 µg m-3 also reflects the high PM10 peak concentrations in the study region. Results of daily PM2.5 measurements at DBW in 2005 and in 2006 showed exceedances of the U. S. daily average air quality standard of 35 µg m-3 for 99 % of the data (mean value in 2005: 222 µg m-3 and in 2006: 123 µg m-3). High daily PM2.5 peak concentrations were observed especially during the winter. Overall, only under extreme meteorological conditions such as heavy rainfalls PM levels of less than 50 µg m-3 were detected at DBW. Diurnal and hourly variations of PM levels were demonstrated. Glass fibre filters proved to be suitable for the collection of high PM loads whereas quartz fibre filters are much more suitable for the laboratory analysis of N species. Determination of particulate ammonium and nitrate on glass fibre filters of spring season was tested and showed averaged concentrations of 2.4 and 13.1 µg m-3 (TSP) and 8.0 and 11.6 µg m-3 (PM10), respectively. The mass spectrometric measurements were challenging due to the filter material and δ15N/14N ratios were found to be very heterogeneous ranging from -3.0 ? to 44.3 ?, referring to both filter types. The simple and low-cost passive sampling method used (Radiellos®) also proved to be an appropriate tool for evaluating ammonia exposure in the NCP. The seasonal ammonia levels were in the range from 9 to 43 µg m-3 at DBW, Wuqiao and Quzhou, which indicates intensive agricultural activity in the whole NCP. No relationship was found between atmospheric ammonia levels and plant growth parameters of Molinia caerulea and thus, growth of these test plants was not related to gaseous dry deposition of ammonia. The NOx measurements in NCP did not yield reliable data within given time. Overall, multiple sources are assumed to interplay at the study site namely, local dust (such as harvest), traffic, biomass burning, coal combustion, secondary aerosol and industrial emissions from Beijing area. Long-range transported air pollutants such as pollutants from Hebei and Shandong province or deserts as well as the weather pattern greatly influence the atmospheric pollution at DBW and NCP in general.
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    Grundlagenuntersuchungen zur Wirkung neuartiger Ureaseinhibitoren in der Nutztierhaltung
    (2008) Reinhardt-Hanisch, Annett; Hartung, Eberhard
    Due to the agreements held by Germany in international and national programmes to reduce climate and environmental deterioration particularly in relation to ammonia emissions from livestock housing, additional measures have to be taken in order to ensure that international and national objectives will be achieved. Within the framework of a BMBF-funded interdisciplinary research project, new types of urease inhibitors had been tested for application in animal housing. The present work shows the necessary basic studies, which formed the basis for the investigations under conditions similar stall conditions and in practice stall in the second part of the project (LEINKER, 2007). The main objective of the present work was to investigate the effect of different urease inhibitors on urea hydrolysis, and thus to quantify the ammonia release of urea applied on cattle slurry under standardized, reproducible and controlled laboratory conditions and to investigate possible influencing factors (Pre-screening). Subsequent objectives result in the following: development of an appropriate measuring system and implementation of a standardized test, study of various urease inhibitors at different substrate temperatures and inhibitor concentrations, selection of the urease inhibitor which has the best reduction effect, and quantification of other factors influencing the effect of the selected urease inhibitor. In order to assess the inhibitor effect, the protonated ammonium and the available ammonia in slurry should be detected by means of conducting slurry analysis. In addition, the first indications of a long-term effect of the selected urease inhibitor, its impact on biogas accumulation, and its effect on liquid swine manure should be derived. In order to carry out the investigations, a water-tank measuring system had been configured and validated. The 28 measuring tanks of the measurement system, where each tank was filled by 2 l of slurry, worked according to the principle of dynamic chamber and were kept at constant temperature using a water bath. A gas analysis based on NDIR spectroscopy had been used in order to sustain continuous measurement of ammonia concentrations in the measuring device. The standardized test, applied in the main experiments, had been developed in the preliminary experiments. Among the five pre screened urease inhibitors (four new active agents + reference NBTPT active ingredient), the urease inhibitor D is selected for further investigations in the project, as this is the best inhibitor having significant reduction effect, which was in general dependent on the substrate temperature and the inhibitor concentration in terms of ammonia release. For an effective reduction of ammonia release, it seems useful to deploy more often smaller quantities of the inhibitor. The urease inhibitor D showed a significant reduction effect regardless of the origin and the layer thickness of the respective liquid manure. In comparison with the urease inhibitor D treated variants, more urea is significantly converted to ammonia and ammonium-nitrogen at a layer thickness of 4 mm than at a layer thickness of 90 mm. Apart from the ammonia release, the resulting nitrogen balance of all the tests showed no indication of further significant gaseous nitrogen losses, e.g. as nitrous oxide. In the experiments, no significant influence of urease inhibitor D had been detected on the (urea independent) basic release of ammonia from the respective liquid manure resulting from the degradation of organic substances. In practice, this means that the use of urease inhibitors is only reasonable in the presence of urea. The preliminary related investigations showed that the duration effect of the urease inhibitor D is dependent on temperature; no adverse effects caused by the inhibitor D of treated slurry on the biogas accumulation. Similar relations, as in cattle slurry, had been recognized and showed for the urease inhibitor D in pig slurry. As part of the investigations, a urease inhibitor is selected for cattle and pig slurry urea hydrolysis, and thus the ammonia release is significantly reduced. The basic investigations afforded an important contribution to the expansion of knowledge in this area, and lead on the other hand to develop new techniques in order to reduce the ammonia emissions from livestock housing.
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    Untersuchungen zur Reduzierung der Ammoniakemissionen nach der Ausbringung von Rinderflüssigmist auf Grünland
    (2000) Reitz, Petra; Kutzbach, Heinz Dieter
    Ammoniakemissionen stammen zum Großteil aus der landwirtschaftlichen Tierhaltung etwa die Hälfte wird durch die Ausbringung von Flüssigmist verursacht. Unter ungünstigen Bedingungen kann der mit dem Flüssigmist ausgebrachte Ammonium-Stickstoff fast vollständig als NH3-Gas in die Atmosphäre emittieren. Negative Folgewirkungen sind die Verringerung des Düngewertes, eine ungesicherte Düngewirkung sowie nachhaltige Umweltschädigungen. Ziel der Untersuchungen war die Bestimmung der Einflussfaktoren auf die NH3-N-Emissionen nach der Ausbringung von Rinderflüssigmist auf Grünland. Es wurden verschiedene Witterungsbedingungen und verfahrenstechnische Maßnahmen wie Ausbringverfahren, Ausbringmenge und veränderte Zusammensetzung des Flüssigmistes untersucht.