Concentrations and emissions of particulate matter and ammonia from extensive livestock farm in South China

Atmospheric particulate matter (PM) and ammonia pollution from livestock feeding have gradually become the environmental concerns due to the spring up of livestock farms in worldwide. However, researches about the formation of atmospheric particulate matter related to ammonia are still limited. Therefore, a study to survey the total suspended particles (TSP), PM with the diameter less than 10 μm (PM10), PM4, PM2.5, PM1, and ammonia was conducted at four types of hog houses distinguished by its building design as well as manure handling methods in South China. Four hog houses were monitored during three fattening periods from 2016 to 2017. The emissions of NH3 per hog house averaged 210.42 μg s−1. The emissions of PM per hog house averaged 2.017 μg h−1 for PM1, 2.149 μg h−1 for PM2.5, 2.305 μg h−1 for PM4, 3.950 μg h−1 for PM10, and 9.317 μg h−1 for TSP. The emissions of PM per hog house average 2.017 μg h−1, 2.149 μg h−1, 2.305 μg h−1, 3.950 μg h−1, and 9.317 μg h−1, respectively for PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM10, and PM10. In each hog house, while the quantity of manure determined the concentration of NH3, biological fermentation bed was able to control the ammonia volatilization compared with other three manure handling methods. The largest percentage of fine PM (< 10 μm) is produced by the manual waterless method for manure handling. When it came to the manual waterless method, largest amount of fine PM (< 10 μm) was founded to form. Among various contributions of secondary inorganic PM to PM1, the NH3 was a dominant factor. Based on our experiment, the absolute concentration of NH3 was inversely proportional to the concentration of PM1 when the background influence was removed.