Influence of the urease inhibitor suspension (Atmowell^®) on the fluorescent dye pyranine and its spray and drift behavior in wind tunnel measurements

Abstract

Too many ammonia emissions are released into the environment from cattle farming. These damage the environment and have an impact on animal and human health. Ammonia Emissions could be reduce by urease inhibitors. Before using the urease inhibitor suspension Atmowell^® in cattle farming a risk assessment is required. This includes exposure data on the animal and human in the barn. As there is no method for exposure measurements yet the approach of fluorometry was taken. The fluorescent dye pyranine shall replace Atmowell^® in later studies as a tracer. Before Atmowell^® can be replaced, the interaction between Atmowell^® and pyranine—according to the fluorescence and storage stability under the influence of ultraviolet light, has to be observed and excluded. Also, the spray and drift behavior must be examined in the wind tunnel with three different nozzles. The results show that Atmowell^® has no effect on neither the fluorescence nor the degradation rate of a pyranine-solution. Furthermore, it is shown that a pyranine + Atmowell^® mixture does not differ in drift behavior from a pure pyranine-solution. Because of these findings, an Atmowell^®-solution can be substituted by a pyranine-solution without any effects on the results of an exposure measurement being expected.

Keywords:

• Urease inhibitor
• fluorometry
• wind tunnel
• exposure data
• ammonia reduction
• pyranine
• droplet size

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the project partners SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz GmbH and Agrotop GmbH. Furthermore Mr. Sven Nolte, Mrs. Celina Ehlers, and Mrs. Katrin Ahrens for their contributions to this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Raw data were generated at Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, Institute for Application Techniques in Plant Protection, Messeweg 11/12, 38104 Braunschweig, Germany. The data is openly available in a public repository that issues datasets with DOIs: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [OpenAgrar] at https://doi.org/10.5073/20220726-132952.^[24]

Nomenclature
NH3	=	ammonia
PPDA	=	phosphoric acid phenylesterdiamide
abs. Dix	=	absolute drift measurement Index
VMD	=	volume mean diameter (µm)

Additional information

Funding

The project Prax REDUCE is supported by funds of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) based on a decision of the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) under the innovation support programme.