Can poultry manure incineration improve sustainability?

The overall goal of this project is to determine if thermochemical treatment of poultry manure, through either combustion or pyrolysis, could improve profitability of poultry farming while helping achieve energy independence and reducing environmental impact of production.

Current practices for land application of manure are regulated by the EU Nitrate directive and in Sweden even stricter national regulations limiting phosphorus application. This means that poultry farmers often need to take on more land to spread the manure, which adds considerable costs to production. Storage of poultry manure must also be done in a manner that limits losses until it can be applied as a fertilizer, which further increases the cost of manure handling.

Given the current situation with runaway energy costs and the need to reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture, using poultry manure for energy production is an alternative use worth consideration.