Analysis of the dust emissions from a naturally ventilated turkey house using tracer gas method Ehab Mostafa & Bernd Diekmann & Wolfgang Buescher & Till Schneider Received: 28 December 2015 /Accepted: 5 May 2016 /Published online: 27 May 2016 # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 Abstract Particulate matter (PM) emissions are becom- ing increasingly important in licensing procedures for the construction of new livestock houses or for the modernization of existing ones. Emission predictions require reliable data about emission rates. On this ac- count, it is necessary to obtain information about the emission development and the relevant influencing fac- tors in naturally ventilated turkey houses. The primary objective of the present research was to describe differ- ent aspects of PM emissions from a naturally ventilated turkey house. This includes the quantification of PM emissions and descriptions of the relevant influencing factors. Moreover, the tracer gas decay (TGD) method for ventilation rate estimation had to be used. To deter- mine the emission mass flow from livestock buildings, it was necessary to measure the concentration of the target substance in the exhaust air and the airflow volume. The PM concentration measurements were carried out with a light scattering aerosol spectrometer in the exhaust air. The airflow volume was determined using the TGD method. To this purpose, tracer gas was injected into the supply air before the concentration decay was mea- sured in the exhaust air of the building. The main influences on the PM concentration and the PM size distribution were shown to be animal activity and air volume flow. For the turkey barn, the PM emission factor averaged 0.027 g h -1 animal -1 over the entire year. If service times were to be included in the calcula- tion, the emission factor 0.021 g h -1 animal -1 , again averaged over the entire year, is well below the regula- tory limit. Keywords Particulate matter . Emission rate . Air volume flow . SF 6 . Naturally ventilated barn Abbreviations m : s PM mass flow (g h -1 ) v · Air volume flow (m 3 h -1 ) Φ w Wind direction (°) V w Wind speed (m s -1 ) A f Exhaust air area of the room (m 2 ) A s Supply air area (m 2 ) T a Outside air temperature (°C) C e Particle concentration in exhaust air (g m -3 ) C o Particle concentration in outside air (g m -3 ) C t i Mass concentration at the time t i (g m -3 ) C t 0 Mass concentration at the time t 0 (g m -3 ) V Animal house volume (m 3 ) t Time (s) C d Coefficient of flow resistance Environ Monit Assess (2016) 188: 377 DOI 10.1007/s10661-016-5355-7 E. Mostafa : W. Buescher Institute for Agricultural Engineering, Bonn University, Nussallee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany E. Mostafa (*) Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, El-Gammaa Street, 12613 Giza, Egypt e-mail: ehababdelmoniem@hotmail.com B. Diekmann Institute of Physics, Bonn University, Nussallee 12, 53115 Bonn, Germany T. Schneider Federal Office for Agriculture and food, Deichmanns Aue 29, 53179 Rheinbach, Germany