Chicken Manure Valorization through Anaerobic Digestion: Advances in Ammonia Mitigation and Biogas Production Enhancement

Abstract

The world demands a huge amount of energy for sustainable development and daily needs. Implementing waste to wealth strategies and recycle based economy models contributing to reduce biomass waste and value addition. The chicken manure is an essential source of organics, ammonia - nitrogen, pathogens, and microorganisms degrading bacteria, by using Anaerobic Digestion method chicken manure can be converted into renewable energy such as biogas. The bioconversion of chicken manure into biogas by Anaerobic digestion with addressing inhibiting factors, enhance digestion and valorization. The anaerobic digestion can be improved by various approaches include pretreatment of chicken manure by physical, chemical, biological processes and co-digestion of chicken manure with organic substrate, lignocellulose material, micro algae; through additives like zeolite, activated carbon, biochar, carbon nanotubes, magnetite to improve microbial community. The current review on biogas production from chicken manure suggests that the technology combined with achievement and Interpretation that provide an review of the different approaches to remove ammonia from AD process to achieve high yield of biogas. Moreover, this review provides zero emission for waste disposal and value addition of the waste for renewable green energy production.

Introduction

The text reviews the potential of chicken manure as a renewable energy resource through anaerobic digestion (AD), highlighting its role in waste management, biogas production, and environmental sustainability. With increasing global energy demand and the environmental problems associated with fossil fuels, converting organic waste into renewable energy has become an important strategy for promoting a circular economy.

Chicken manure is a promising feedstock for biogas production because it contains abundant organic matter and essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. However, its high nitrogen content and low carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio can cause ammonia accumulation and inhibit methane-producing microorganisms. Improper disposal can also contribute to environmental pollution, unpleasant odours, and the spread of harmful pathogens and antimicrobial resistance.

Anaerobic digestion is an oxygen-free biological process in which microorganisms break down organic matter through four major stages: hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis. These processes convert complex organic materials into biogas, which typically contains methane and carbon dioxide. The efficiency of digestion depends on maintaining suitable operating conditions, particularly pH, temperature, total ammonia nitrogen (TAN), alkalinity, and volatile fatty acids (VFA).

Several enhancement strategies have been investigated to improve biogas production and reduce ammonia inhibition:

1. Pretreatment methods: Biological pretreatment using selected bacterial strains and CO? injection can improve organic matter breakdown, substrate biodegradability, methane yield, and biogas quality.

2. Co-digestion: Combining chicken manure with carbon-rich materials such as Chlorella microalgae, sawdust, corn straw, and other organic wastes helps balance the C/N ratio, reduce ammonia inhibition, improve microbial activity, and increase methane production.

3. Additive supplementation: Materials such as carbon nanotubes, biochar, magnetite, and granular activated carbon (GAC) can enhance microbial activity and direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET), improving digestion stability and methane generation.

4. Ammonia removal and purification: Techniques such as leach bed reactors, struvite precipitation, and ion exchange using materials like zeolite help control ammonia concentrations and improve anaerobic digestion performance. Each technique has operational advantages and limitations.

The text also discusses analytical methods used to monitor anaerobic digestion performance, including gas chromatography, ion chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), quantitative PCR (qPCR), spectrophotometry, and pH measurement. These techniques help evaluate methane production, biogas composition, ammonia concentration, volatile fatty acids, nutrient levels, and microbial activity.

Finally, the review highlights the valorization of biogas as a renewable energy source. Methane produced from chicken manure can be upgraded into biomethane or used for electricity and heat generation. The remaining digestate can also be utilized as nutrient-rich organic fertilizer. Other waste-to-energy technologies, including combustion, pyrolysis, and gasification, provide additional options for converting poultry waste into useful energy products.

Conclusion

Chicken manure has high potential to induce a metabolic pathway, pre-treatment modifies the physicochemical properties of manure by reducing pH and improving substrate solubilization, microorganism’s breakdown into biodegradable organic matter under the absence of oxygen. The inclusion of corn straw, sawdust, carbon nanotubes, microalgae, additives and plant herbs is used to enhance the biogas production efficiently. The additives drastically increase biogas production by 16%. GAC triggers in anaerobic reactors influence the bacterial and archaeal communities during the anaerobic digestion of poultry manure. Chicken manure with carbon-rich biomass feedstock including corn straw has been shown to significantly improve fermentation performance. The effects of air stripping of the digestate to remove excess ammonium prior to recirculation, finding that approach enhanced biogas production and overall digestion efficiency. Infusion of magnesia and phosphate in digester can improve the ammonia inhibition leads to 25-40% increase in methane production. Increase ion exchange capacity include micronutrients like Ni, Co, Mg. It works as alternate key for methanogenic bacteria.

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Copyright © 2026 Chozhavendhan S, Subramanian N, Jai Priya R, Poorvi R, Sibi Krishna Subramanian, Rohini B, Shobika V. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.