Monitoring of ammonia emissions from stored buffalo digestate covered with biochar

In Campania Region, the rise in Buffalo heads reared plays an important role in the manure management of the region. Moreover, in order to comply with the European regulation (the National Emission Ceiling), the updating of national emission inventories, as well as the investigation of different fertilizers, manure treatments prior to field application and innovative reducing ammonia techniques, are necessary. Specifically, controlling emissions techniques should help farms both during the storage period and during the spreading activities. Indeed, both steps in manure management affect the total ammonia volatilization. To this purpose, this paper presents an innovative view of the manure management system. The interaction between Biochar (a solid material obtained from the thermochemical conversion of biomass in an oxygen-limited environment) and manure was evaluated, adding a commercial Biochar to the liquid fraction of buffalo digestate in the storage tank. The data obtained suggest that a reduction in ammonia emissions is still possible. A reduction in terms of ammonia emissions was recorded during the storage period due to nutrient retention capabilities of biochar. Specifically, Digestate without any coverage proved to emit 58% more than the same digestate covered by a 2 cm of biochar.