Mobile Labs Measure Air Quality

More and more people are concerned about the odors associated with livestock operations, especially confinement facilities.

To determine just what’s in the air coming from confinement animal  buildings, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has sent six mobile labs to locations in six different states — all part of one of the most comprehensive studies on animal system air quality to date.

The University of Illinois is one of six universities involved in the project, which has moved into its second of three years.  The University of Minnesota, North Carolina State, Purdue, Iowa State and Texas A & M also are involved.  A team from each university is collecting emission information from different commercial livestock or poultry operations.

In this second year of the study, researchers are using the mobile labs to measure the dust, odor and gas inside the different buildings, along with the flow rate of the fans used to exhaust air out of the buildings. By correlating this information, they know how much dust, odor and gas are emitted. They will also evaluate the differences in emissions due to geographical region, season of year, time of day, building design, growth cycle, animal species and building management.

Yuanhui Zhang, U of Illinois agricultural engineer, is working on the project. 

“Our key objective is to try to quantify the emission rates from confinement animal buildings, in terms of dust, odor, ammonia, hydrogen sulfites and other pollutant gases,” said Zhang.  Currently, emissions from animal confinement facilities are not regulated.