Turning manure into snow
Pork producers could find Canada’s cold winters an advantage in eliminating odors from liquid manure and separating cleaner water from nutrient enriched solids.
Snowfluent, a new Canadian technology, won the Schreyer Award in 1997, the top technical award of the Canadian Consulting Engineers of Canada. Installations across North America are treating wastewater from municipalities and food processors, but a test last winter at Dana Giebelhaus’ farm near Vegreville, Alta. was the first on liquid hog manure.
Researchers with Alberta Agriculture report odors and nutrients were significantly reduced using the Snowfluent for liquid hog manure. However, nearly all the ammonia dissolved in the water was lost to the air in the pilot test.
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Overall, results were promising and production scale testing was recommended.
“Snowfluent is a proven technology that treats wastewater by turning it into snow,” said Jeff White, head of Delta Engineering Ltd., the company developing the technology.
The tests confirm that as water freezes into small pellets, volatile gases like the odors in liquid manure are stripped from the water. Other contaminants are precipitated from the water in a process called atomizing freeze-crystallization.
“We know that process works for municipal wastewater. This test shows that our technology is a cost-competitive solution for pork producers who must control odor in lagoons and at field spreading,” he said.
Giebelhaus’ 300 sow farrow-to-finish operation had a single cell lagoon with a capacity of 6.8 million litres. Liquid manure was drawn off the top 45 centimetres without agitating the lagoon.
“We thought that solids in the manure might plug the nozzles in the snow-making guns. For the test, there was no straw in the lagoon and the nozzles handled barley husks without problems,” reported James Wuite, water quality analyst with Alberta Agriculture.
“However, we processed a liquid manure fraction with very little solids. Consequently, most of the nitrogen in the manure was water-soluble ammonia, not nitrate in solids.”
The Snowfluent process expands the surface area of treated wastewater by 30,000 times in freezing tiny ice pellets, making it efficient at stripping volatile gases like manure odors and ammonia.
“There are still options to explore to capture more of the ammonia into the solids, but the odor and water quality improvements are significant,” said Neil MacAlpine, water management engineer and project manager with Alberta Agriculture. “After Snowfluent treatment, the meltwater had reductions of around 60 percent in nutrients compared to the liquid manure and virtually 100 percent kill on the bacteria. The Snowfluent technology makes winter our ally in processing liquid manure.”
Alberta Agriculture’s Snowfluent Treatment of Liquid Hog Manure is available from Delta Engineering Ltd. Orders can be faxed to 403-471-3918 or 613-521-8533.
– Alberta Agriculture
