Utilization of Poultry Manure After Biological Deactivation and Incineration to Enhance the Quality of Degraded Soils

Abstract

Treating poultry manure with calcium compounds is the primary technique for inactivating toxic pathogens such as bacteria, fungi, or viruses and decreasing the risk of biological contaminant release into the environment. On the other hand, the preferable method for reducing its volume is incineration with the aim of obtaining highly concentrated fertilizer. This paper presents the optimization of the biological deactivation of fresh poultry manure using calcium hydroxide via central composite design and response surface methodology. The results revealed that the optimum parameters required to decrease the number of E. coli bacteria to below the acceptable level (1000 CFU/g) were 5.0 wt% Ca(OH)2 at 22 °C and an exposure time of 209 h. A regression analysis showed a good fit of the approximated parameters to the experimental data (R2 = 98%, Radj.2 = 97%). Additionally, laboratory tests involving ash samples obtained from the incineration of poultry manure with the addition of 5 wt% calcium hydroxide (T = 500 °C, t = 5 h) intended as a fertilizer for degraded soils were performed. The analysis revealed that the content of pure manure ash in the sample incinerated with Ca(OH)2 was approximately 47.5%. An X-ray diffraction analysis of the ash sample revealed that the main crystalline component was calcite (67.5 wt% CaCO3), the phases containing phosphorus were apatite (3 wt%) and hydroxyapatite (3 wt%), whereas the source of the bioavailable form of phosphorus was the amorphous phase (15.5 wt%). An analysis of the ash extracts in a 2% citric acid solution revealed that the phosphorus concentration (287 mg/L) was two times lower than that of potassium (661 mg/L). The best results of phytotoxicity tests with Sinapis alba were obtained for soils containing no more than 1.0 wt% ash with calcium hydroxide.