Effects of pig slurry acidification on methane emissions during storage and subsequent biogas production.

In addition to undesirable odorous gases, substantial amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG), particularly methane (CH), are generated during the storage of livestock manure. To reduce the CH emissions, first, pig slurry (PS) was stored for 40 d at 30 °C after adjusting the pH at 5.0-7.0 using HSO solution. In the control (non-acidified PS), 3.7 kg CO eq./ton PS of CH emissions was detected, which was reduced to 1.8, 0.9, 0.4, 0.2, and 0.1 kg CO eq./ton PS at pH 7.0, 6.5, 6.0, 5.5, and 5.0, respectively. Methanosarcina was found to be the dominant genus (67% of the total archaeal sequence) in the control, whose dominance was reduced as storage pH decreased. The results of ribonucleic acid analysis and specific methanogenic activity test further confirmed the inhibition of indigenous methanogens by acidification. Later, the biochemical CH potential of stored PS was tested. Compared to the control (10.6 L CH/L PS), the acidified PS showed higher CH yields of 12.7-14.6 L CH/L PS, presumably by keeping degradable organic matters in PS under acidic condition. Among different acidification pHs tested, the maximum amount of GHG reduction was achieved at pH 6.0 by reducing CH emission to +0.4 kg CO eq./ton PS during storage while increasing biogas production potential equivalent to 48.3 kWh/ton PS (-22.5 kg CO eq./ton PS), resulting in a further reduction of (-)9.6 kg CO eq./ton PS compared to the control.