• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.453-466
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• 2006

To comply with stricter regulations provoked by increasing odor nuisance, it is imperative to practice effective odor control for sustainable livestock production. This study was conducted to assess odor and odorous compounds emitted from liquid animal manure with different treatment methods such as Fresh Manure(without treatment, FM), Anaerobic Digestion(AD) and Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion(TAD) and their application to soil. Air samples were collected at the headspace of liquid manure, upland and paddy soil, and analyzed for odor intensity and offensiveness using an olfactometry; odor concentration index using odor analyser; nitrogen-containing compound such as ammonia(NH3) using fluorescence method; and sulfur containing compounds such as hydrogen sulfide(H2S), methyl mercaptan(MeSH), dimethyl sulfide(DMS) and dimethyl disulfide(DMDS) using gas chromatography-pulsed flame photometric detector, respectively. Odor intensity, offensiveness and concentration index from TAD liquid manure was statistically lower than those from FM and AD(p<0.01). Mean concentrations of H2S, MeSH, DMS, DMDS and NH3 were 65.93ppb, 18.55ppb, 5.26ppb, 0.33ppb and 10.57ppm for liquid manure with AD; and 5.15ppb, 0.97ppb, 0.80ppb, 0.56ppb and 1.34ppm for liquid manure with TAD, respectively. More than 60% of malodorous compounds related to nitrogen and sulfur were removed by heterotrophic microorganisms during TAD treatment. When liquid manure was applied onto upland and paddy soil, NH3 removal efficiencies ranged from 51 to 94% and 22 to 91% for AD and TAD liquid manure, respectively. The above results show that liquid manure with TAD is superior to AD and FM with respect to the odor reduction and odor problem caused by land applied liquid manure is directly related to the degree of odor generated by the manure treatment method.