Emission mapping of animal graves

At a Korean government research facility, an experiment was designed to see what the environmental impact would be if a large number of animals had to be buried due to a potential foot and mouth epidemic.

For a three year project which began in February 2012, five animal graves were specially constructed and filled with different numbers of dead pigs and cattle, and the gases and liquids produced by the decomposing carcasses are being routinely measured.

To monitor the gases, the project requires reliable continuous gas monitoring equipment for unsupervised monitoring of the emissions over the course of the three years. Three Geotech GA3000 fixed biogas analysers, supplied and supported by ENInstrument, were chosen for the job.

The Geotech GA3000s are monitoring levels of CH4, CO2, O2 and H2S coming from within the graves. Temperature is also of interest to the researchers and is being monitored with a separate device.

The GA3000 has since been superseded by the GA3000 PLUS. Both offer reliable monitoring of CH4, CO2 and O2 as standard. The GA3000 PLUS can monitor both high and low range H2S, and now has new Profibus communications.