Time delay for aerial ammonia concentration measurements in livestock buildings

Correct measurements of ammonia concentration in air still present considerable challenges. The high water solubility and polarity can cause it to adsorb on surfaces in the entire sampling system, including sampling lines, filters, valves, pumps and instruments, causing substantial measuring errors and time delays. To estimate time delay characteristics of a Photo Acoustic Multi Gas Monitor 1312 and a Multi Point Sampler continuous measurement of aerial ammonia concentrations at different levels was performed. In order to obtain reproducible data, a wind tunnel was used to generate selected concentrations inside and a background concentration representing the air inlet of the tunnel. Four different concentration levels (0.8 ppm, 6.2 ppm, 9.7 ppm and 13.7 ppm) were used in the experiments, with an additional outdoor concentration level as background. The results indicated a substantial time delay when switching between the measuring positions with high and low concentration and vice versa. These properties may course serious errors for estimation of e.g. gas emissions whenever more than one measuring channel is applied. To reduce the measurement errors, some suggestions regarding design of the measurement setup and measuring strategies were presented.