Influence of sargassum horneri mitigating odorous gas emissions from swine manure storage facilities

Manures from livestock industries and farmyards should be managed for land application. Currently, a deep pit or barn system is adopted by many swine farms for manure management, therefore releasing harmful gases and rising the total global emissions of GHGs. This research focuses on the effectiveness of the brown seaweed Sargassum horneri as a masking agent to mitigate odor-generating gaseous pollutants and reduce the emissions of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from swine manure storage facilities. Using an optimized procedure, we compared the gaseous emissions from two manure storage barns, one containing swine manure masked with S. horneri and the other without masking as a control, over a 30-day period. The results showed that, compared to the control, seaweed masking significantly reduced the sulfide and VFA contents. Furthermore, reductions of 99.48% in H₂S, 60 ± 5.21% in NH₃ and 74.28 ± 2.14% in gaseous amine emissions were observed within the experimental period. Intriguingly, seaweed masking had beneficial effects, decreasing the total odor content by 97.78 ± 3.15% and increasing the nutrient quality of the manure. S. horneri has great potential as a masking agent in swine manure management to control environmental pollution.