| Abstract
| - Poor air quality within swine concentrated animal feedingoperations (CAFOs) poses a threat to workers, thesurrounding community, and farm production. Accordingly,the current study was conducted to evaluate a technologyfor reducing air pollution including particulate matter(PM), viable bacteria, and ammonia within such a facility.The technology consists of an acid−oil−alcohol aerosolapplied daily. Its effectiveness was evaluated by comparingair quality from before to after treatment and betweentreated and untreated sides of a barn separated by animpervious partition. On the untreated side, air quality wastypical for a swine CAFO, with mean PM2.5 of 0.28 mg/m3and PMTOT of 1.5 mg/m3. The treatment yielded a reductionin PM concentration of 75−90% from before to aftertreatment. Effectiveness increased with time, application,and particle size (40% reduction for 1 μm and 90% for >10μm). Airborne bacteria levels (total bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, and gram-positive cocci) decreased one logarithmicunit after treatment. In contrast, treatment had no effecton ammonia concentrations. These findings demonstrate theeffectiveness of an intervention in yielding exposure andemission reductions.
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