Reducing nitrogen

Reducing nitrogen emissions

With a nitrogen stripper, it is possible to reduce nitrogen emissions. With this method, nitrogen is stripped from digestate and stored as ammonium sulfate or nitrate. A nitrogen stripper is a technical installation that extracts nitrogen from animal manure and stores it in a fertilizer feedstock.

This prevents the nitrogen from animal manure from escaping to the air from storage or when it is applied to the land. The N-stripper was therefore developed for farmers with a large manure oversupply.

Oxidation

One possibility to apply more livestock manure on one's own land is by “biological treatment” to oxidize the nitrogen. However, this takes a lot of energy and the valuable nitrogen is lost from the farm.

The nitrogen problem is the harmful effect on ecosystems of excess emissions of reactive nitrogen compounds in the nitrogen cycle due to human actions. With an N-recovery unit, it is possible to reduce nitrogen emissions at the farm levels. On many farms manure is removed because the space available does not allow this amount to be spread on the farm's own land. In many cases nitrogen is the limiting factor. After the manure is removed, chemical fertilizer is purchased in many cases.