Capturing Energy and Nutrients From Poultry Litter.

Thermo-chemical processes are playing a new role today in managing nutrients on poultry farms. In broiler operations, the conversion of poultry litter with heat not only provides a weight and volume reduction but concentrates the NPK nutrients in an attractive way.  The need to find better alternatives to land application of manure is driving new innovation and the adoption of technologies from other industries.  Scaled down versions of gasification hybrids, pyrolysis, multi-stage combustion and boiler processes are being redesigned and combined with electrical generation technologies to advance integrated system solutions for animal agriculture. This paper will overview system testing, results and some of the lessons learned from selected case studies provided by on-farm research.

Harvesting useful energy from poultry litter offers important benefits to the farmer who is being challenged to manage the nutrient rich waste stream in a more environmentally acceptable way. This paper will describe different processes being deployed and will characterize the nutrient value of byproducts and how the economic value of ash and bio-char is being extended to environmental benefit.