Research conducted by Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute suggests solid-liquid separation offers a potential alternative for addressing concerns related to the phosphorus contained in livestock manure but cost is a key factor to be considered.
PAMI in partnership with the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative, Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the University of Manitoba, the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment and the Puratone Corporation has completed an evaluation of two commercially available technologies for solid-liquid swine manure separation, a centrifuge and a Fournier rotary press.
Preliminary results were presented earlier this month in Winnipeg as part of the 2012 Manitoba Swine Seminar and a final report will be released by the end of March.
PAMI Agricultural Projects Manager Lorne Grieger says key findings so far relate to the removal of phosphorus.
We’ve seen removal rates around up to 50 to 60 percent phosphorus removal with different technologies under different conditions and even higher than that depending on the manure concentration of phosphorus going into the systems.
These results would indicate that there is potential to modify the manure stream and allow export of the dry solids which contain a high percentage of the phosphorus in the manure.
One of the considerations that always needs to be thought of before moving forward is the cost of systems including capital equipment and labor and operating expenses that would be associated with such a system.
Manure treatment should be one of the last steps before considering a change in operations.
The first thing to consider always would be to look at feed management as well as existing manure management practices to determine if other methods can be used to remove phosphorus from the manure stream.
Grieger notes solid-liquid separation will result in an additional manure stream that will need to be managed as well as potential health and safety issues that can arise when working with liquid manure that sits and has a potential to release hydrogen sulfide gas.
