Odour emissions from poultry litter - A review litter properties, odour formation and odorant emissions from porous materials

Odour emissions from meat chicken sheds can at times cause odour impacts on surrounding communities. Litter is seen as the primary source of this odour. Formation and emission of odour from meat chicken litter during the grow-out period are influenced by various factors such as litter conditions, the environment, microbial activity, properties of the odorous gases and management practices. Odour emissions vary spatially and temporally. This variability has made it challenging to understand how specific litter conditions contribute to odour emissions from the litter and production sheds. Existing knowledge on odorants, odour formation mechanisms and emission processes that contribute to odour emissions from litter are reviewed. Litter moisture content and water thermodynamics (i.e. water activity, Aw) are also examined as factors that contribute to microbial odour formation, physical litter conditions and the exchange of individual odorant gases at the air-water interface. Substantial opportunities exist for future research on litter conditions and litter formation mechanisms and how these contribute to odour emissions. Closing this knowledge gap will improve management strategies that intercept and interfere with odour formation and emission processes leading to an overall reduction in the potential to cause community impacts.

Non-methane volatile organic compounds predict odor emitted from five tunnel ventilated broiler sheds

Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) emitted from mechanically ventilated poultry sheds in similar stages (32-36 d) of broiler production were measured by thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS), then identified using parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC2) and the NIST11 database. Calibration models predicting odor measured by dilution olfactometry from NMVOC concentrations via orthogonal projection to latent structures (O-PLS) made good predictions (Rp(2)=0.83-0.87, RMSEp=137-175OU) using one to eight NMVOCs with either one or two latent variables representing odor concentration and character, respectively. Similar changes in odorant composition were observed in each sampling campaign, with samples collected early in the day more odorous and more sulfurous than samples collected later in the day. High litter moisture favored sulfur-containing odorants over alcohols, aldehydes and ketones but had little bearing on perceived odor, whereas high bird density favored alcohols, aldehydes and ketones over sulfur-containing odorants. Eight VOCs that were important predictors of odor across all sheds in order of decreasing importance were dimethyl sulfide (DMS), dimethyl trisulfide (DMTS), 2-3 butanedione, 3-methyl-butanal, 1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol, acetoin, and 2-butanone. Four additional NMVOCs also influenced perceived odor although less predictably; these were n-hexane, 2-butanol, dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), and 1-octen-3-ol. All of the odorants are associated with microbial or fungal activity in the litter and manure, except n-hexane, which may originate from hexane-extracted soybean meal in the chicken feed. The organosulfides measured in this study may have arisen from the field sites as well as from the degradation of thiols captured on sorbent tubes during analysis by TD-GC/MS.