Author(s)

A. Schütz, J. Seedorf, E. Klasmeier & J. Hartung

Abstract

Livestock operations are causing considerable amounts of particulate matter (PM) indoors, which are finally emitted into the environment by the ventilation system. There is increasing concern that airborne pollutants such as PM with a particle diameter < 10 µm (PM10) may have a negative effect on the respiratory health of the human population, but it remains unclear how livestock operations contribute to the overall PM10 loads in the atmosphere, because direct PM10 measurements are very rare. Therefore, an orientating PM10 survey was conducted in a turkey barn to check the suitability of a high volume PM10 sampler, which based on the filtration technique. Under some operating conditions the device failed to impact airborne dust homogeneously on the filter disks. To ensure a proper dust sampling the filter exposition time was finally scaled down to 2 hours. The 24-hour averaged PM10 concentrations varied from 0.56 to 2.44 mg m-3 during day 35 and 92 of the fattening period, but with no interrelated correlation. Compared to the results of a parallel operated inhalable dust (ID) sampler, the ratio PM10/ID varied between 0.4 and 0.7. These first results indicate that more investigations on PM10 in turkey barns and other livestock are necessary to confirm the device-related practicability of such measurements over complete production cycles. Keywords: PM10, livestock operations, turkey barn, dust measurement, high volume sampler, conversion factor.

Keywords

PM10, livestock operations, turkey barn, dust measurement, high volume sampler, conversion factor.