Ammonia Emission Mitigation in Agriculture: Advancing Anaerobic Digestion Technologies for Sustainable Farming

SEaB Power Ltd, which trades as SEaB Energy, is a UK based company. SEaB Energy is the first to market a patented, compact and modular anaerobic digester (AD) to convert organic wastes into energy and revenue directly at the point of waste production. SEaB's flagship product, Flexibuster, is a containerised anaerobic digester that includes a pasteurisation process that safely turns organic waste into useful and valuable energy, fertiliser and grey water while eliminating the necessity and costs of transport and disposal of organic waste elsewhere.

These systems have achieved technology readiness level 9 (TLR9) and have been deployed in the UK, Italy, France, Portugal and USA.

Our project will take place at The Centre for Dairy Research (CEDAR), a unique, world-renowned facility for applied and strategic animal research, situated at the University of Reading's Hall Farm at Arborfield. Research at CEDAR addresses many of the key issues for the sustainability of animal production systems, and demonstrating success at CEDAR could inspire other farms to adopt our innovative methods, leading to industry-wide reductions in ammonia emissions.

The main technical challenge we are addressing is the reduction of ammonia emissions from the anaerobic digestion process in agriculture. This is significant due to ammonia's detrimental environmental impacts, including eutrophication and contribution to greenhouse gases.

This grant will be used to to systematically examine how varying operational parameters and feedstock compositions in the Flexibuster affect the production and mitigation of ammonia emissions from specialised small scale Anaerobic Digesters, and new ways to utilise the nutrient rich digestate, and evaluate the environmental and commercial impact of the capture and responsible use of ammonia.

We will conduct an economic feasibility assessment of the optimized system. The ultimate goal is to understand the potential commercial viability of our solution and its environmental benefits and develop the plan for phase 2\.

The results from this research will not only contribute to the knowledge base on ammonia emissions in agriculture but could also spur the development of new products, services, or processes associated with anaerobic digestion. By refining the operational methods of the Flexibuster, our project will provide practical solutions that align with both environmental sustainability and economic viability.

In doing so, we hope to make a significant contribution to sustainable agricultural practices and the overall reduction of the sector's environmental impact.