LAUSR

Abstract The swine industry, regulatory agencies, and the public are interested in farm-tested methods for controlling gaseous emissions from swine barns. In earlier lab- and pilot-scale studies, a renewable catalyst consisting of soybean peroxidase (SBP) mixed with calcium peroxide (CaO 2 ) was found to be effective in mitigating gaseous emissions from swine manure. Thus, a farm-scale experiment was conducted at the university's 178-pig, shallow-pit, mechanically-ventilated swine barn to evaluate SBP/CaO 2 as a surficial manure pit additive under field conditions. The SBP was applied once at the beginning of the 42-day experiment at an application rate of 2.28 kg m −2 with 4.2% CaO 2 added by weight. Gas samples were collected from the primary barn exhaust fans. As compared to the control, significant reductions in gaseous emissions were observed for ammonia (NH 3 , 21.7%), hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S, 79.7%), n -butyric acid (37.2%), valeric acid (47.7%), isovaleric acid (39.3%), indole (31.2%), and skatole (43.5%). Emissions of dimethyl disulfide/methanethiol (DMDS/MT) increased by 30.6%. Emissions of p -cresol were reduced by 14.4% but were not statistically significant. There were no significant changes to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of methane (CH 4 ), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O). The total (material + labor) treatment cost was $2.62 per marketed pig, equivalent to 1.5% of the pig market price. The cost of CaO 2 catalyst was ∼60% of materials cost. The cost of soybean hulls (SBP source) was $0.60 per marketed pig, i.e., only 40% of materials cost.