Particulate matter emission from livestock houses: measurement methods, emission levels and abatement systems

Animal houses are extremely dusty environments. Airborne particulate matter (PM) poses a health threat not only to the farmer and the animals, but, as a result of emissions from ventilation systems, also to residents living in livestock farming areas. In relation to this problem, the objectives of this thesis were threefold. The first objective was to increase our understanding and knowledge of concentrations and emission rates of PM in commonly applied animal housing systems. This objective is worked out in chapter 2 which presents a national emission survey into the concentrations and emissions of PM, which covered 13 common housing systems for poultry, pigs, and dairy in the Netherlands and included 202 24-h measurements at 36 farms. The emission figures from this work are currently used in the Netherlands in environmental permit granting procedures (to model the local dispersion of PM10 in the vicinity of livestock farms), to estimate national emissions, to compute large-scale pollutant concentration maps, and to annually evaluate the state of affairs of the National Air Quality Cooperation Programme (NSL). The second objective was to develop, test, and validate technologies to mitigate PM concentrations and emissions in poultry farms and ultimately contribute to cleaner outdoor air. This objective is worked out in chapters 3 through 7. Chapters 3 and 4 describe two experiments, one in broilers, one in layers, that investigated the effects of spraying rapeseed oil droplets onto the litter of poultry houses which prevents particles from the litter from becoming airborne. On the basis of chapters 3 and 4, chapter 5 describes a field evaluation of four systems that mitigate PM emissions by reducing indoor concentrations: a fixed oil spraying system, an autonomously driving oil spraying vehicle, a negative air ionization system, and a positive air ionization system. Chapter 6 describes a field evaluation of two ‘end of pipe’ systems to remove PM from the exhaust air