FILTERLESS AND WATER BASED THECHNOLOGY
FOR AMMONIA REDUCTION

Project Description

The project aims to fully demonstrated the ability of an innovative technology (APA - Air Pollution Abatement) to extract ammonia (NH3) directly from indoor air. APA has been successfully tested to also remove a wider range of other pollutants (e.g., particulate matters and other chemical/gaseous pollutants such as NOx, Sox) and CO2.

The Challenge

Pollution is recognised by the United Nations as a major threat to global biodiversity.
The costs associated with ammonia emissions under best available projections for emissions (NAEI, 2022) have been estimated in at least £700m (Guthrie et al, 2020), with projected values, if no actions are implemented, to go as high as £16.5bn per year (Royal Society, 2018).

Existing technological solutions, including traditional scrubbers are inefficient and costly, requiring or intense labour presence or underground and ventilation infrastructure, making them not economically viable.
Looking at measures to reduce ammonia emissions from livestock housing, in 2021 the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute assessed various technologies concluding that cost is highly likely to influence the rate of adoption by farmers.

Project Objectives

The project aims to address the challenge of "reducing the production and impact of ammonia from agricultural practices" using the APA (Air Pollution Abatement) technology, which has been tested and demonstrated in the preliminary Phase 1 in 2023, for the ability to remove ammonia directly from indoor air (animal housing).

During the project, we aim to widely demonstrate that our innovative and alternative solution APA, a patented technology which is filterless and nature-based (using only water), can be also positively evaluated from the end-users (farmers) as an easy-to-deploy and effective solution to reduce ammonia emissions inside animal housing systems

The main activities will focus on:

Further develop the Phase 1 innovative Minimum Viable Product (MVP) into a fully commercial product

Assess the re-use of the processing water enriched with ammonia

Deploy the APA technology in different real-world farms and cover the widest range of animal stock housing and conditions

Develop a commercial plan and an IP strategy/road-map to commercialise APA into the farming sector

Methodology

Within the 10 months of the project duration, we plan to gather data and evidence both in environments representative of real-life operating conditions (at farms sites) and at laboratory level to enhance the level of efficacy of the APA solution for the farming sector. More details below

On-farm piloting

Deploy the APA technology in different real-world farms and operational conditions

Abatement performance assessed by a third party

Close engagement with farmers to gain feedback

On-lab testing

Verify the potential to transform the processing ammonia enriched water into a secondary valuable by-product

Verify the ability to also remove nano particles

Chemical analyses of water samples

Outcomes

In recent years, farmers have faced numerous challenges, including the increasing need to balance regulatory compliance with sustainable business management and operations. Animal welfare and sustainability, such as reducing NH3 emissions, are hot topics in the livestock industry gripped between the retailers’ demand for animal that live longer and meet stricter welfare standards without driving up the prices

Main outcomes expected at the end of the project:

Offering an innovative Ammonia abatement solution (APA) to a new sector (farming)

Verifying if the treatment water can be reused as a fertiliser to increase traction and reduce farms costs

Liaising with the sectors' stakeholders to understand and overcome adoption barriers

Expected impacts

Protecting the natural ecosystems

Ammonia damages sensitive natural habitats causing acidification, eutrophication of rivers, algal blooms and biodiversity loss

Mitigating climate change

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a major greenhouse gas (GHG) that traps heat in the atmosphere and drives climate change. APA offers the environmental co-benefit of capturing CO2 along with Ammonia

Improving quality of life for all

Cleaner air in indoor animal housing directly benefits the welfare & health of both the animals and the livestock workers

Ammonia reacts with NOx and SO2 to form particulate matter (PM). The resulting PM can travel long distance, affecting human health in both rural and urban areas

Facilitating legislation compliance

The Government Clean Air Strategy aims to reduce emissions of Ammonia against the 2005 baseline by 16% by 2030 and action by farmers can make a big difference in achieving this goal

Preliminary Results

During the project it was demonstrated and validated the APA system, based on a filterless, water-based and patented technology and a simple structure, to be extremely effective in high-efficiency Ammonia reduction, achieving performances of Ammonia abatement greater than 40% in all the livestock housing environments for pig, poultry and dairy units.
The monitoring campaign conducted independently by Ricardo, has demonstrated that APA contribute to reducing the overall emissions from the livestock facilities, not only for Ammonia but also for other pollutants, including GHGs, Methane and CO2 (Table 1 below) as well as an excellent capacity to trap the pollutants into the water during the process (Tables 2).