Using Low-Cost Gas Sensors in Agriculture: A Case Study

The main goal of the POREM (LIFE17 ENV/IT/000333) project consisted in demonstrating the applicability of the treated poultry manure for soil restoration or bioremediation. To perform the research activities planned for the project, a considerable amount of poultry manure was stored in a large depot located in a rural, remote, and unattended area. The use of the manure implied the emissions of odors and gases that required continuous and real-time monitoring. This task could not be accomplished by placing expensive instrumentation in such a remote and unattended location, therefore, we have investigated the use of low-cost gas sensors for monitoring such poultry manure emissions. A portable monitoring unit mainly based on chemoresistive gas sensors was used to provide indications about the concentrations of NH3, CH4, H2S, and CO2. One of these devices was deployed in the manure storage depot, while the second one was deployed far from the storage site to compare the data related to the background environment with the measures coming out from the manure. Both the monitors were wirelessly linked to the internet, even though the radio signal was weak and swinging in that location. This situation gave us the opportunity to test a particular protocol to remotely control the devices based on sending and receiving e-mails containing commands for the remote machines. This experiment proved the feasibility of the use of low-cost devices in such particular environments, and data gathered seem to indicate that, if properly stored, gases and odors emitted by poultry manure have a limited impact on the air quality of the surrounding environment.