A floating chamber for estimating nitrous oxide emissions from farm scale treatment units for livestock wastes

A floating rectangular polyvinyl chloride (PVC) open bottom chamber coupled with a molecular sieve trap was designed to measure the amounts of nitrous oxide gas (N2O) emitted during aerobic treatment or storage of liquid anim al slurries. A number of outdoor calibration trials, using water and a stan dard gas mixture, resulted in an average N2O recovery of 79 +/- 8%. Further experiments carried out on a farm scale aerobic treatment unit confirmed t he reliability and ease of use of the method. (C) 1999 Silsoe Research Inst itute.