Comprehensive pig manure treatment using the BIOSORTM biofiltration process

Increasingly stringent standards and heightened public awareness regarding environmental issues has led to an increase in research on various treatment methods used in different countries. Among manure treatment options, organic bed biofiltration represents a very promising technique for treatment and recovery of liquid and gaseous effluent on pig farms. Considering this technology's potential, industrial-scale research and development has been carried out to prove that the BIOSOR TM process is effective in treating pig manure and foul air in farm buildings. This work was recently done on-site at a livestock farm using a 400 m 3 industrial biofiltration system. The system consists of a combined decanter-digester, a protective prefilter and a double-action biofilter. The system performed well despite variations in temperature and organic load at the manure pretank outlet. Despite wide variations in BOD5 (10 000 - 20 000 mg/L), in SS (10 000 - 20 000 mg/L), in TKN (2 000 - 3 800 mg/L) and in Ptot (500 - 900 mg/L), the BIOSOR TM system was able to maintain an overall pollutant removal performance averaging > 95% for the BOD5, > 97% for the SS, > 75% for the TKN and > 87% for the Ptot. By reducing the raw manure's organic load by more than 95%, BIOSOR TM eliminates close to 95% of the odours produced when the manure is transported, stored and spread.