Effects of dicyandiamide and Mg/P on the global warming potential of swine slurry and sawdust cocomposting.

Composting is an emerging strategy for swine slurry treatment; nonetheless, significant greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions may occur during this process. We carried out two separate assays with increasing doses of dicyandiamide (DCD; up to 1.1% w/w) as a nitrification inhibitor and solutions of MgCl2 and H3PO4 (Mg/P; up to 0.09/0.06 mol kg-1) to promote struvite crystallization in order to assess their efficiencies as additives to decrease GHG emission during swine slurry cocomposting with sawdust (1:1v/v). We monitored the nitrous oxide (N2O-N), methane (CH4-C), and carbon dioxide (CO2-C) emissions and the ammonia (NH4+-N) and nitrate/nitrite (NOx-N) concentrations in compost reactors (35 L) during the first 4-5 weeks of composting. DCD had no effect on CH4-C and CO2-C emissions but decreased N2O-N losses by up to 56% compared with control. However, DCD inactivation was favored by thermophilic conditions and N2O-N emissions increased to same levels of control after 13 days. Mg/P was effective to decrease N2O-N losses only at the highest dose, which also sustained higher [NH4+-N] in the compost by the end of the assessment. Nonetheless, the use of 0.09/0.06 mol kg-1 of Mg/P also decreased CH4-C and CO2-C emissions compared with lower doses of Mg/P and unamended treatments. Overall, DCD and Mg/P amendments decreased the global warming potential (GWP) of swine slurry composting by up to 46 and 28%, respectively. The Mg/P application may be also interesting to increase the compost quality by increasing its NH4+-N availability. Graphical abstract.

Assessment of N2O emission from a photobioreactor treating ammonia-rich swine wastewater digestate.

This study investigated the interactions between naturally occurring bacteria and the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris within a lab scale photobioreactor treating ammonia-rich swine wastewater digestate effluent. Nitrification and denitrification were assessed by targeting ammonia monoxygenases (amoA), nitrate (narG), nitrite (nirS), nitric oxide (norB) and nitrous oxide (nosZ) reductases genes. Oxygen produced from microalgae photosynthesis stimulated nitrification. Under limiting carbon availability (i.e., <1.44 for mg TOC/mg NO2-N and 1.72 for mg TOC/mg NO3-N), incomplete denitrification led to accumulation of NO2 and NO3. Significant N2O emission (up to 118 µg N2O-N) was linked to NO2 metabolism in Chlorella. The addition of acetate as external carbon source recovered heterotrophic denitrification activity suppressing N2O emission. Effluent methane concentrations trapped within photobioreactor was removed concomitantly with ammonia. Overall, closed photobioreactors can be built to effectively remove nitrogen and mitigate simultaneously greenhouse gases emissions that would occur otherwise in open microalgae-based wastewater treatment systems.